Letting the days go by/water flowing underground

I sitting at my desk, copying information about early species domestication in the Andes, while on my computer screen James Bond Rochester declares his undying passion for Jane, rather than Romana I Blanche Ingram. Spencer used the last bowl this morning, so I've just finished my breakfast of honey nut cheerios out of a smallish tupperware. Later, I'm gonig to go sit in a classroom for a couple of hours while a balding Russian man issues death threats and praise at near equal rates.

There are times that I suspect the rest of my life is not quite going to measure up in terms of the occassional bizarreness that is college living.

This is my beautiful home...

Picspam post! Some random photos from Spence's Christmas camera taken over the last few days.

I get to be first, since it is my blog. Spence just took this one tonight, at the math club's monthly pizza night:



So Spence the photographer can be next. I took this one; his expression is a result of me yelling at him to stop glowering at the camera:



Lovely white board, covered in trig identities. They're useful!



And all of my texts for the semester. (Just in case I ever need proof I owned them, or something.)



Our pretty TNG cup catching the water leaking under our kitchen sink. The guys was supposed to come today to fix it, but I don't think he did. Sigh.



And since I don't want anything under the sink while it's leaking... all my cleaning supplies are stashed on the desk that lives in the kitchen. (Note Glad garbage bags, which are so totally worth the extra couple of bucks.)



Nicely tidied lounge; hw on the couch, crisps on the table, sunlight pouring through open windows. What more can a body ask for?



The other side of the lounge. I still need to dump that box in which my new bookshelf came...



Kitchen...



And me stalking down to the floor, to strip it of it's protective covering of grime. Kill, KILL!



Ahem. After the great grime hunt, one needs a snack:



Cheese on toast comes out quickly and perfectly from the toaster oven. Me amore.



Aaaand, it looks like that's it folks.

Oh, school, you ask? School's going well. I really like my math classes, (the prof is acerbic, abrasive, sarcastic, and wonderful) and my geography class (prof is whacked out, unafraid to tell you you're really wrong, and funny and random as all get out) and the econ classes require very little, except my attendance, which I can do. I dropped the American Music class, because it seemed more torturous than it was at all worth.

And I leave you for the night with:

It's the (hopefully not) final countdown...

And...we're back. Finals did end, Christmas break was had and enjoyed by all, and now it's just about back to the old grind. But with all new classes for our (whereby I mean my) tagging pleasure!

Right. So. Two more days. I'm really hoping my linear algebra book comes today, though at this point, it's not looking good. Dang it. That's the only one I ordered online (saving 60 dollars!) and it would be depressing to have to start out the semester a book short. Worse case scenario, I go buy a copy from the bookstore, and then return it when mine comes. Hopefully it doesn't come to that. Fortunately, I know people in the class who'll (probably) be willing to share until mine arrives, for homework purposes.

In addition to linear algebra, I'm also taking Elementary Differential Equations (shortened to Mom's favorite acronym, DFQs, pronounced diffy-cues), History of American Music, Human Geography (for which we're reading the book Guns, Germs, and Steel), intro microeconomics, intro macroeconomics, and aerobic dance. Six classes (plus dance, which doesn't really count), 20 units, and...no more GE! After this semester, I mean. Except my required upper division theme, but that's only three classes, and I think I can meld most of it into requirements for either the math or econ major.

Hey, you like the new colourscheme? I decided the pink was getting just a bit...pink. I quite like this blue, and the new header is cool.

In other news. Spencer's computer decided to stop making sounds for him this afternoon. Headphones still work, so he's determined it's the speakers that are built into the monitor. As such, he's wandered off to K Mart to buy some external (and hopefully cheap) speakers. I offered to unhook my speaker to let him test his hypothesis, but he declined. Ah well: his time and money, I suppose.

Ack, and now Mom's distracted me into playing on myreads. Dang it. Well, that's all from me, then.

I can haz burthdai kaek!

In honor of my 20th birthday, Spencer invented a cake for me!



It's two layers of brownie...



With Cool Whip filling...



And a pumpkin/cream cheese/cool whip frosting.



I told Spencer if he didn't give me at least a little smile, I would start calling him emo boy and rigging his comp to play Fall Out Boy and Nine Inch Nails. Maybe some Dashboard Confessional. It seems to have worked, at least a little.

The cake is really quite good, though after the Chinese food we had for dinner, I'm afraid I can't eat as much of it as I'd like. The chicken chow mein was nice too. An evening for commendable cuisine!

Actually, today would have been a lot better if I didn't have a physics test tomorrow to worry about. Gah. Calc tomorrow is cancelled (the prof, a 30 year old single guy, skipped out yesterday to start his break), so I'll be able to spend all of tomorrow morning doing some last minute review for the test. I've also got an exam in logic, but we get a notecard for it, and it wouldn't be hard anyway.

But tomorrow, after the physics test is done... I get to go home! Mom's coming up tomorrow, doig lunch and grocery shopping with Spence while I'm suffering the torments of academia. But as soon as the test's over, I'm biking home, tossing my stuff in the car, and we're taking off. And I will not even think about physics for a week.

(Except to read the next chapter of the text. And fret over the test. And wake up, startled, from dreams about calculating the torque that the world's elephants exert on the earth, while helping Superchicken and the Third Doctor save the world. I'm not kidding. My subconscious is a weird place.)

And, because I was taking pictures, (and it is my birthday, after all), here's me:







And, in Spencer-style dramatic pose:



It was a fun day. food was good, and I got some cards and a certificate for a used book store from Spence (just what I'd asked for). Hee.

But now, back to productive stuff. Like...packing. Or homework. Man, can it be holiday yet?

Under this national rain cloud, I'm getting soaked to the skin

Except that I have my trusty brolly. (No, that's not what mine really looks like. More's the pity.)

It's just poured here the last couple of days. It's been kinda fun; I've gotten to try our my new water-proof, early birthday shoes, which have been massively awesome. (Hey, I can like, walk around outside without soaking my feet in the process! Neat!) It also gave me a good excuse (not that I really needed one) to make spicy peanut veggie soup on Halloween.



Otherwise, it's pretty much just back to your regularly scheduled school week here. I have a Proofs test on Friday, a calc test next Wednesday, and Physics and Logic tests the Friday after that (which is, incidentally, the last day before Thanksgiving break. I think they're trying to make us really grateful.)

Oh and hey, the election's tomorrow! That's kinda nice. If only so it'll be over with and I'll (maybe!) not have to hear any more about it from Spencer. Oi. Right-wing conspiracies this, paranoid website posters that. Almost makes me want to vote for McCain just to see how apoplectic I could make him. Hmm... *ponders*

*It should, at this point, be noted that google has a disappointing selection of images to go with the word "apoplectic". Though it did come up with one of a naked Katy Manning cuddled up to a Dalek. So...there you go then. I think.*

And to finish up this post, some more of what everyone needs: rapping Luther. No, really. I think that the ELCA should get permission to run this on commercials or something.

We are the young - our lives are a mystery,

we are the old - who yearn for your face.
We have been sung throughout all of history,
called to be light to the whole human race.
Gather us in - the rich and the haughty,
gather us in - the proud and the strong.
Give us a heart so meek and so lowly,
give us the courage to enter the song.

Church was nice but, umm, I kinda can't count. Because Reformation Sunday is the Sunday before Halloween. Today is the 19th. 19 plus 7 is 26. Hence, there is still one more Sunday in October. Le sigh.

But never mind. It was really nice to go anyway. And I'll just have to go back next week. It's incredibly easy for me to bike there; just straight down one road, without even any lane changes. Getting back is marginally trickier, but still not bad, since there isn't a lot of traffic out at 9:15 on a Sunday morning.

I got up at 6:30, and Spencer was already up and fed. Weird kid, that one.

In other news, I get to register for next semester's classes on Tuesday! That'll be fun. I'm taking econ 102, econ 103, math 335, and math 260 for sure. Also probably going to take geog 102 for a GE requirement, and also probably another aerobics class.

If I do take all of those, that'll only leave me one GE class left, my C1 requirement. Stupid arts. Why can't they offer a class on, like, knitting. Or somethng actually useful. It could still be artistic! Just...not totally dumb. Oi.

But. Right. Physics lab report time. Onwards, upwards...

Because Dad just checked,

I will post. Seems reasonable.

But not a long post, because I really ought to be doing my physics lab report (yeah, again. Funny, it was this time last week that I posted, avoiding my lab report work...)

Today, (instead of regaling you with tales of centripetal acceleration), I will talk about words. First up, words that people in my bible class can neither pronounce, nor define (taken from just one day of lecture and readings):

oracle
cherubim
tabernacle
prostrated

The girl who was reading when we hit the word 'tabernacle' actually stopped, looked up in annoyance, and whinged "But why do I have to read? I don't even know what this word means!"

Can I slap you now? And okay, I'm probably being unkind and/or unreasonable. But GE classes annoy me. Particularly, you know, the people in them.

Next, new words I've learned since I started college. Well, the ones I thought neat enough to write down:

proband
prosopagnosia
scapegrace
amphictyony
eschatology

Eschatology and amphictyony came from Bible class, prosopagnosia and proband came from a research paper I did for Marriage and Family Relationships last semester, and scapegrace... I don't remember where that came from. But I think scapegrace is a particularly awesome word, and intend to use it in my next paper, if I possibly can.

Anybody learned any neat words lately?

Also, next week's Bible essay midterm got pushed back a week, which is an absolute grace, since I have physics and calc midterms next Friday and Wednesday, repectively, to worry about.

Aaaaand, let's see. Spencer banged his (injured) knee into his computer table about twenty minutes ago, which made it start bleeding again. It's really, fine, but he's more than happy to take the excuse to watch some more TV on his comp, rather than taking a shower/going to bed. Ah well. He's a grownup now. (Also, he only has one class to worry about staying awake for tomorrow. Oi.)

And yay for Mom and J coming up tomorrow! It's tres exciting! *Does happy dance* I can't wait. Hee hee!

And, in order to fully enjoy my time with them, I should get back to work and finish all my homework before they come. *le sigh* But hey! Tune in to this spot next week, same physics time, same physics channel...

Songs to Aging Children [Don't] Come...

So, here's a quote pulled from Sarah Palin's recent interview with Katie Couric.:

"I'm not going to solely blame all of man's activities on changes in climate. Because the world's weather patterns are cyclical. And over history we have seen change there. But kind of doesn't matter at this point, as we debate what caused it. The point is, it's real, we need to do something about it."

Right, good to know that not all of my activities are going to be blamed on changes in the climate. I appreciate that, though even I'll admit to getting a bit cranky when it's very hot out. And yeah, that's not what she meant, and you can tell, from context, what she did mean. But still. Pretty funny.

Spencer just got back from walking the rent cheque down to the manager's office. We had fried rice for dinner, so that was nice. It's a good meal for us to make, because we both contribute; I cook the rice, and he fries it up. We're both good at our own parts of the process, and not terribly good at the other person's.

Also, a note: young adults are not, in general, terribly good at reading aloud. Particularly from the Bible, but I'd go out on a generalizing-limb and venture that they're just not very good at it in general. I mean, come on. How do you get into college (no, skip that, get to the age of 18) without figuring out how to pronounce Gilead? And, once corrected, don't you think you'd at least make an attempt at pronouncing it properly the second time? The third? Please, just shoot me now.

*Teddy is frustrated by stupid people*

But, never mind. I'm sure Logic tomorrow will make me feel much better...

In other news, I fell off my step today in aerobics. (And yeah, those are actually exactly what our steps look like.) We were in the middle of a new routine, and I suppose I was concentrating on the wrong thing, because I went to step up and found the edge of the step, followed rapidly by the floor. I've got a nice bruise on my left hip, but it wasn't too bad; the girl next to me stopped to help me up. We usually have someone fall off the step once every couple of class periods; today was just my day to be special. It's usually a problem that the girls with longer legs have: you step out to do a part of the routine, and hey! No step. Oops.

I sewed up a hole in one of the pockets of my brown leather jacket today. Now change will hopefully stop falling in to the lining of the jacket. not that, you know, it's at all cold enough here to warrant full length trousers, let alone a jacket. But soon! We're forecast (drumroll...) Rain! This Friday and Saturday. That would be different. Might have to hunt down my umbrella...

Hmm, down to the end of the entry, and I still don't have a good song lyric for the post title. I'm listening to Joni Mitchell's Clouds album right now, but I think "I Don't Know Where I Stand" is a bit harsh for even Mrs. Palin.

To days of inspiration,

...Playing hooky, making something
Out of nothing, the need
To express-
To communicate,
To going against the grain,
Going insane,
Going mad

Well, not playing hooky. And we're just trying for the days of inspiration. The going insane part is pretty spot-on, though.

I'm at school right now, down in the basement of the student union. I don't have class (Bible) for another 45 minutes, so I'm responding to emails and resisting the urge to go buy and consume grossly overpriced (but delightfully tasty) foodstuffs. No. Will not. Will wait until I get home and scarf a Totinos before leaving again for aerobics.

I have a busy night tonight; lab report from today's physics lab is due tomorrow, and I really should do another one of the proofs we were assigned for Proofs homework, though I doubt we'll get through any but the first one of the set, which I've already done.

Want....food...

I had a really nice rant thought out about the stupidity of how money and time are spent on campus by the bureaucracy, but I can't quite work up the fervor for it right now. Maybe later.

Spencer's only class tomorrow (math) got cancelled, so he has tomorrow off, the lucky bloke. Though, he did trip and rip a hole in the knee of his jeans this morning, so things balance out. Except that they don't, because he was on his way to getting In N Out for lunch at the time. Mmm, In N Out...

Oh, I almost forgot! I've been downloading lots of music lately, for free and (allegedly) legal, from spiralfrog.com. It's pretty easy to use, all of the songs play nicely with Rhapsody, and they have a decent selection. I adore free music. It's grand.

Well, I'm going to wander on over to my classroom now, I think. I'd like to just go home and nap until aerobics time, but never mind. Sleep is for weekends, anyway.

People Take Pictures of Each Other

Or, at least of their food. I was noticing today the... sparseness of Spence's pantry shelf compared to mine, though as he fairly pointed out, all of his food is in the freezer. Here's a pic of it I took with mi telefono; Spencer's shelf is nice and empty enough that we can keep all the ziploc bags there, too.



Spencer's contents: 2 boxes of popcorn, 2 boxes of jello mix, 1 brownie mix, 1 almost-empty thing of peanut butter

Teddy's contents: Bag of tortilla chips, bag of chocolate chips (don't get the two confused!), 1 box mashed potato mix, 1 box Rice a Roni, 2 boxes of pasta meals, 6 boxes mac n cheese, approx. 3 pounds of spaghetti, 4 boxes of cereal, 1 full box of strawberries and cream instant oatmeal (you might almost think I like carbs!), 3 jars of spaghetti sauce, 2 boxes blueberry muffin mix, 1 jar of applesauce, 1 tin of chilli, 1.5 things of peanut butter, aaaaaand 1 jar of Nutella.

But of course, I couldn't just stop with the pantry. Here, therefore are pics of our perishable food stores. Because I can. Mwahahahaha!



Spencer's contents: 2 mini frozen pizzas (not shown), 2 cartons of ice cream, 1 thing of frozen jello, I frozen Totinos, I box breakfast toaster things, 3 boxes off-brand hot pockets

Teddy's contents: 3 frozen Totinos, 1 popsicle




Spencer's fridge contents: 12-pack of cherry cola, 2 things of lunch meat, mozzerella cheese, sharp cheddar cheese

Teddy's fridge contents: 3 (cherry!) yoghurts, eggs, gallon of fat-free milk, torillas, jam from Teresa's mum, 2 things of colby jack cheese.

Plus miscellaneous bits in the fridge door: communal carrots, condiments, and butter, my applesauce, Spencer's cranberry juice

So, there you go. Mostly, an excuse to play with my cameraphone :)

In other news, I really love Word 2007. It is my friend. It lets me write out reeeeealy pretty equations for my lab reports, and formats them properly. La. Plus, a full complement of math and Greek symbols that don't require any special keystrokes. Me gusta mucho.

While we're on the topic of things I like, I quite like my gas stovetop. It's fun. And I like the Rent soundtrack a lot. And sleep, too. And not-crazy-hot weather is nice.

yawn. Speaking of sleep...

Things, are what I like to do...

...Doing things is what I like to do

Things are what I like to do
No twiddling of thumbs
I get everything done

I'm slightly more productive now than previous because...
I'm slightly more efficient than I previously was...

Doing things is what I like to do, YES!
Doing things is what I like to do, YES!

Courtesy of They Might Be Giants, via a lj I follow, from a Dunkin' Doughnuts commercial. And yes, I'm quite good at doing things.

Particularly, it seems, if those things resemble failing physics tests. I went in, sat down, collected my test, read all of the problems first, then proceeded to freak out. Badly. I suspect the test was something of a train wreck, though I did get pretty fully through 2 of the 4 problems, and at least wrote some stuff down for the other two. Still, I think I'll be lucky if I get over 50 points, out of 100. It would even probably be all right if it was being curved, but it isn't. Sigh. Seriously have to try harder next time (when, thankfully, there isn't a calculus exam two days beforehand).

But! The calc exam, I actually did quite well on that, at least. Since Pavone has a TA this semester, we actually got them back the class after we took it (today). And... the damage: out of a total of 40 points, I got 28. Which, on its own, isn't even horrible, but then we also have the pretty grade curve! So, more important than my personal score was the class average, which was a grand staggering 20.6, with a standard deviation of (equally impressive) 9.4. So, I'm very nearly a standard deviation above the mean, though unfortunately this semester you have to be 1.5 above to get an A. Ah well; I'm still entirely pleased with this result. Three of my four good friends in the class actually showed up for it today; they got 29 (yay for Joanna!), 22, and 20, respectively. The fourth friend is hacking sick, but showed up f0r proofs (homework due) before bolting off to her physics test. Still, I'm looking forward to Monday, to find out how she did. I am a nosy parker...

Spencer's out tonight, seeing a Autobahn by Neil LaBute in town to fulfill a requirement for his drama class. I wish there were more plays here I was interested in seeing, although the Blue Room is going to be showing The Laramie Project in Novemeber. Maybe I'll get around to seeing that...

But for now, there's a pleasant weekend ahead of me. The only thing I have to do is run to the bank tomorrow, and then I get to stay curled up at home, working on homework and getting the tidying-up done that I didn't manage during the week. Hey, maybe I'll cook something more complex than pasta-with-sauce-from-a-jar-poured-on-top. That'd be neat.

And, while I'm thinking about the nice things I get to do this weekend, I think I'll wander off and contemplate getting more than 6 straight hours of sleep. Mmm, sleep...

Six o'clock already, I was just in the middle of a dream...

Monday again! I'm fed, dishwasher's running, and I've still got ten minutes left before I have to take off for calc. Man, I don't know if I can even describe how glad I am that I only have one 8:00 class this semester; last year, it was every morning. Now, only Thursdays!

Physics session last night went well. I need to do some more projectile motion problems, so I really know what's going on there, but I think I'm generally in good shape. We'll see come this Friday, I suppose...

Spencer had a bit of a math-induced meltdown last night. Sigh. Got hissy and stalked off. Him, not me. Obviously.

Now, calc followed by proofs followed by logic followed by physics. Everyone have a good day!

San Francisco's Calling Us...

...the Giants and Mets will play.

Or not. And actually, more San Jose than Frisco, but never mind. Pretty song.

I wish that you were here with me to pass the dull weekend...

And I will be!

Present wrapping tonight. I've been trying to get Scrobbler to find the tracks I play in Rhapsody, bit all I can make it do is list the tracks I play from the Rhapsody library, rather than the ones I've imported myself, which is 99% of what I listen to. Sigh. Music doesn't count unless it's been scrobbled!

Oh, everyone should go read this xkcd strip. Because dang, funny. And don't forget to hold you mouse over the strip, to get the extra punch line.

Got my lab report turned in on time, though the prof was mistaken in his assumptioin that there would be lab space open today for people to finish/rerun experiments. Soooo, I just finished writing it up as it was, noting the (kinda sad) systematic error in the acceleration portion. D'oh! On the upside, I got the quiz question of the day right! Go me!

Hah, so I went to the library comp lab this morning to correct a typo (for some reason, Word on my comp isn't correcting my spelling) and add the error explanation. I sit down at a comp, load my doc of my flash drive, and it comes up fine EXCEPT that the previous Word user had set the default language to Japanese. Kinda not cool. And, of course, hard to fix. I had to call over one of the nice tech people who staff the lab, to swap it back so I could, you know, type in my own language and preferred font. He fixed it pretty easily, but dude! Japanese!

Went to the math club welcome back picnic this afternoon. Last year, there was barbeque, but no one wanted to go to all that effort this year. Sooo, the obvious solution? Chinese delivery! I haven't been that full after a meal in a long time. Plus, they ordered too much, so everyone was ordered (by math club official decree) to take some home. Lots of people, for some (to me) inexplicable reason didn't want to take any home. Needless to say, I had no such compunctions. Brought home two things of rice, one of orange chicken, and one of sweet and sour chicken, for Spence. Who is still a bit sniffly, poor dear.

Hmm, perhaps I should throw together the things I need for a daytrip down south...

Right then, bits-gathering I go. Ta ta!

She's a maniac, maniac... (about school)

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.

Right. Okay. I leave in half an hour. *Will not be ill in the meantime*

Heard Spencer clomping around at 6:30, and there was a note for me on the white board when I went downstairs for brekkie, informing me what time he'd left. Bless.

Right. Calculus first, followed by Proofs, then Logic, then finishing up with Physics. Okay. Right.

But now, for something completely different:



and,



Because every day should begin with a little bit of the BBC. Macroed, when possible.

I don't have a water bottle at the moment, but fortunately I found alid for one of the fairly large tupperware-brand cups. That should see me through the day.

Gaaaaaah, okay. *Runs away to compulsively brush her hair and repack her backpack*

Tacos!

Spencer's walking down to Safeway at the moment (wearing a vest over his t-shirt, and long jeans, in 95 degree weather) to ...

Hang on. Sorry, was distracted for a moment by the two cars driving backwards down West Sac. Yeah, gotta love Chico when the students are in town.

But anyway. Spencer's on his way to Safeway to get some mince, and possibly lettuce for tacos tonight. I don't relish the idea of cooking over a hot oven this afternoon, but he's (oddly) determined to have something celebratory for our last day before college. So, whatever. He can be the one to cook with the hot oil. I'll grate cheese and shred lettuce.

In other news, it's kinda hot here. Just a bit. Sort of. Maybe a little.