Things I am going to hell for:

* Singing Spike Jones's "Der Führer" under my breath while watching a documentary in Western Civ on Hitler's rise to power. (Okay, so this is only one thing. But it can't be good.)

Look, the documentary was awful. I mean, if a documentary uses the phrase "dark, demonic personality," can you really trust it? It's probably a bit much to demand a neutral presentation of facts when it comes to Hitler's reign, but must it be sensationalized? Isn't it shocking enough all by itself?

I Googled the doc in question and found that it was made in 1956, which explains a lot. Including my professor's use of it. I've written about this guy before, and how much I enjoy the effects of his seeming inability to move beyond a grounding point sometime in the seventies, but sometimes it is a bit questionable. There's got to be a billion documentaries on this subject that are better than The Twisted Cross. (See? Even the title is ridiculous!)

. . . anyway. I have been a bit MIA journalwise because I have been having issues with my internet, but this will hopefully be resolved shortly. In the meantime, I have a couple of stories in the works, one of which is finished and needs typing - it's written entirely by hand, on paper; it's been years since I did that! - and one of which is getting there and will need to be presented for inspection by the flist before I unleash it on fandom in general.

Oh, man. Here is my stupid snow story, since everyone else has one:

For the second Monday in a row and third Monday overall, my Western Civ class has been snowed out. We also missed a class because the professor was ill.

We are FOUR classes behind in the kind of basic framework history class that never covers everything it needs to cover ANYWAY. This is RIDICULOUS. We are supposed to have a test today that was meant to happen last Wednesday (it's a Mon-Weds class) and I now assume will happen this Wednesday.

I am feeling GREATLY WHINY about this. I don't think I've had a course yet that missed this many classes, and we're only a month and a half into the semester. He's gonna have to make some cuts from the syllabus, and dammit, I don't want him to cut any of the stuff on twentieth-century Russia. I am looking forward to those classes. Even though I also totally have a book that I'm going to read one of these days that will have much more information. I DEMAND MY RUSSIAN HISTORY IN CONVENIENT LECTURE FORM.

Occasionally, as an English major, one gets the chance to write something incredibly ridiculous. On Tuesday, I got to write and pass in a paper comparing Hamlet and The Fix. (This was my justification for paying actual money for that bootleg: "It's okay, it's for SCHOOL!")

I think my flist contains a few people as geeky as I am who might be interested in reading this paper, so I figured I'd throw it up here. It's not as thorough as I'd like - it came out to six and a half pages for a five-page assignment, and that was after skipping the comparison of Tina and Ophelia - but I think it's a decent overview. And it does contain a brief summary of The Fix (an incomplete one, but it has what you need to know for the paper), so if you're not familiar with it, it's okay.

( A closer examination, and strong familiarity with both plays, makes it clear that The Fix is in actuality an aggressively cynical retelling of Hamlet. )

My two favorite things about writing this paper:

* Srs Scholastic Discussion of fictitious gay incest

* The fact that my Works Cited contains a website entitled "Zombie Prom (A New Musical)." Guys, when you are writing about a work as obscure as The Fix, you take your outside sources where you can find 'em.

My two least favorite things about writing this paper:

* As you may have gathered, my professor has a Thing about the Oedipal complex theory; we read Hamlet for his class after reading Oedipus Rex, and also he teaches a class on Freud. I HATE the Oedipal complex theory as applied to Hamlet SO GODDAMN MUCH, but it happens to work in favor of my argument, so I went with it.

* This is my third paper on Hamlet in two semesters. (It should be my fourth, but I never did get my shit together on that assignment last semester.) Good thing I love Hamlet, right? Now can I please have at least another year before I end up studying the fucking thing again?

Oh, man, I think I love my Western Civ professor.

Random Classmate: "How long do you want the answers to be on the test?"
Professor: "About eight minutes."
My Classmates: ". . ."
Me: *spends rest of class fighting off intermittent gigglefits*

And he spent the rest of class answering the question without in any way offering helpful information. He's kind of amazing like that. He can be really exasperating, but he does love the subject and he's pretty funny sometimes. I mean, on purpose.

I just wish I didn't constantly have the feeling in that class like we're missing the most important stuff that really ties everything together, but I can probably only expect so much from a 100-level Western Civ class. I'm only taking it because it's a prereq for the French Revolution and Napoleon class I really want to take, anyway.

(Which: I know this is in no way a news bulletin to anyone who has previously managed to take a halfway decent world history class, but I have not done that until now, so - French history is FUCKED UP. How that country even still exists is frankly beyond me right now. Holy crap.)

Boy, I love dragging myself out to campus to discover that my only class for the day has been cancelled.

. . . actually, the weather is gorgeous, my Creative Zen decided to present me with The Fix, and I walk to campus instead of taking the bus now so it was a lovely walk and I can leave whenever I want. Plus I can hang out in the computer lab and use the gigantic gorgeous Macs they have (seriously, so fucking pretty) to thread at Milliways and possibly even type up and finish polishing a Fix fic that I keep - uh, not typing and polishing.

So what was I bitching about again? MY LIFE IS SO HARD YOU GUYS.

I think I need to do another challenge request of some kind. I might do crossovers again. That was fun. I still need to round up and post the ones I did for the kiss challenge way back in like October. Which I still haven't finished fulfilling, and frankly, aside from the one I've written but not typed (you know who you are), I can't do the ones I have left. I just have nothing coming to mind whatsoever. That happens with these challenges; there are always a couple that don't click for me. Anyway. I suppose I could get going on compiling those here on the gorgeous Mac too.

Okay. In my Shakespeare class (I am taking a Shakespeare class, which I have only wanted to do for like ten years! but I digress), we are reading As You Like It. For some reason, the campus bookstore ran out of copies, so I have had a bit of an epic battle in the past couple of days trying to locate a copy. Borders had, I swear, EVERY SINGLE ONE of his plays EXCEPT AYLI. And an entire SHELF of Hamlet. WHATEVER, BORDERS.

So yesterday I went to the campus library, which I do not do much because it is gigantic and does not use the Dewey Decimal system (and, okay, the giant posters on the wall explaining how things are categorized aren't that hard to read, but it is still off-putting), and found the world's most antiquated edition of As You Like It. It's a 1963 reprinting of an edition first published in 1890. The "footnotes" frequently take up entire PAGES of the text, and always fill at least half a page, which is distracting and makes it hard to read the play itself.

And I NEED to concentrate on the play itself, because it is published with Elizabethan spelling intact. It's perfectly readable, but disorienting, and if you tell me that it would not take you a good thirty seconds to figure out the word "deuife" even with Obvious Context, you are a LIAR.

. . . so I think I'm gonna order a copy off Amazon, which I was avoiding because I didn't want to lose too much time waiting for it. We have vacation next week, so it'll still get here in time to get plenty of use out of it. I'll just make do with with this crazy edition until then. It's neat and all and I'd hang on to it if I was just reading for fun, but since it's for school, I'd like an edition that as immediately accessible as possible.

A few random items, because I would like to get into the habit of, like, posting again. Or at least to not have entries on the front page that are from October.

* My Western Civ professor is about as stereotypical as a history professor can get. It's amazing. His terminology is grounded firmly in the seventies at the latest - he refers to "examinations," which I of course am aware of as a term for tests, but I have never once had a teacher who used it before now. He also explained to us about Louis XVI being in "the hoosegow" during part of the French Revolution. The hoosegow, you guys. And he said it twice. I kind of love him a lot.

Also, his scorn for the aforementioned Louis XVI knows no bounds. He kept cracking on the guy for not being able to make a damn decision, and he would do it in this polite-history-teacher way that just made it more awesome. He sounds like he's editing himself for the classroom, but if there was some kind of French History Bitching Session, he would just let it rip and really tear Louis XVI a new one.

* Victoria's Secret sells lollipops. I do not know if this is a new thing, since I only started shopping for proper bras (as opposed to sports bras for Wal-Mart) like six months ago, but it is new to me. And hilarious. And of course I bought one.

. . . and, since it was of a particular brand, it qualified me for a free small stuffed dog. It is flashy and ridiculous and I cannot determine a reason for it to exist, and I have a history of naming stuffed animals after characters in whatever fandom I'm in at the time. So, obviously, Bewildering Scribble Dog's name is Jack.

* The series three Doctor Who finale arc makes less sense every time I watch it. It also makes me want to write more year that never was fic. And that just brings me back to the stagnating recent-past-paradigm, because even though I STILL have no idea where to end it and have more or less decided that including the YTNW is not entirely workable, I just still can't shake the idea. Maybe it needs to be another fic, or something. Maybe there's a reason I can't get any farther with what I've got. Maybe I need to suck it up and start writing the damn thing again already. It might help to start doing drabbles again or something.

* The finale does, however, contain one of my favorite lines, after Saxon greets the President right before the broadcast: "Can I make you some tea? Or is that not American enough? *pause* Can I make you some grits? What are grits, anyway?" Because he doesn't go for the obvious coffee joke! Also: GRITS. Ha. I wonder if RTD was aware of that joke being extra-funny because grits are a specifically Southern food, and a lot of our Presidents have been Southern. If it was just because grits are inherently funny, that's okay too.

* Seriously. Does anyone know of a good drabble challenge community that I can use to get myself posting again? I spent about a month last year posting drabbles every day and it was fun! For me, at least.

So I have this thing where I cry much more easily over fiction than reality. Why? I don't know. I suspect a lot of people do the same. Anyway, today this translated rather hilariously into me merely misting up during President Obama's inauguration speech, and then twenty minutes later on the bus having to all but restrain sobs over Billy Shipton as I watched Doctor Who on my Zen player. Priorities, my tears ducts has them.

Today was the first day of classes, which I was a bit put out over since I wanted to watch the inauguration, but the class I would have been in during the swearing-in ended early because the professor wanted to see it, and they had places set up everywhere to watch. I got to the spot on the Gorham campus just in time to see (well, hear, it was very crowded) President Obama have difficulty retaining sentences in his short-term memory long enough to repeat them, which, seriously, I just wanted to pet him. It was very adorable. superior knowledge of the Constitution, which is very slightly less adorable but far more useful. So I watched that and most of his speech before I had to run for the bus back to the main campus, then another class, then I hung around the campus center watching the set-up they had there until I got too cold and had to flee. And now I am in the much warmer computer lab with the CNN feed running.

Awesome new classes (Spanish and Shakespeare so far; one more today and one more tomorrow), awesome new president (other thing I am restraining myself from: typing "President Obama" fifty times in a row. I would be crying properly by the end of it), and awesome new way of entertaining myself on the ride between campuses. This is a good day.

(President Obama.)

(President Obama.)








PRESIDENT OBAMA.

Oh my god, I haven't posted in almost two weeks. How did that happen??

I ATEN'T DEAD.

Things I have done in the past two weeks:

* Written two awesome papers and one crappy one.

* Accurately pegged a fellow classmate as nineteen based entirely on his world-weary disdain for the vast majority of society. I told him he reminded me of a cross between Chuck Bass (world-weary disdain etc) and Dan Humphrey (sense of intellectual superiority). I have a good feeling about his future self, though. He does, after all, have the taste and intelligence to dislike The Catcher in the Rye when he could just as easily go in the opposite direction and identify with it. *shudder*

* Spent two hundred bucks at Amazon on my textbook for the semester. The most expensive one was a bit over fifty bucks. And I didn't even buy them used. Let's hear it for a) being an English major (no expensive math or science textbooks!) and b) having budget-conscious professors!

* Part of that order was the latest translation of Les Miserables. You guys, I have finally found a translated novel that I can enjoy reading. I am very wary of translations. So often something goes wrong and the book ends up feeling detached, like instead of reading the story, I am reading about the story. This is a really good one, though; the translator, Julie Rose, has updated some of the language and used idioms to make it more accessible and genuine, but has still kept the feel of a novel that takes place in early-ish nineteenth century France. I don't know much about translation, or about Les Mis, but the quotes on the book jacket tell me that she has given the novel "the captivating tone Hugo would have struck for his own contemporaries." This makes a lot of sense to me. Older novels can be such dry going for modern readers, but they wouldn't have been back when they were published, would they? (I mean, unless they sucked.) So, anyway, I'm enjoying the book a lot, and I know I have Julie Rose as well as Victor Hugo to thank for that. You can be reading the most amazing book in the world, but if the translation is crap, you'll never know it.

* TV! Gossip Girl and Supernatural and Dexter and House and The Sarah Jane Adventures! I should probably get back in gear and start writing post-ep reactions again. And maybe I can even keep them below the epic length that my Doctor Who series four ones tends to reach.

OH I HAVE A VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION. Ugly Betty people! I got irritated and disillusioned with the show last year for starting to rely too much on easy jokes and contrived, cheap crap. I made it through the entirety of season two and decided not to continue for season three, but - the episode blurbs are making me curious. So, has it gotten better? It is anywhere near the standard of awesome that the first season set? Or should I just let it go?

* Ridiculous things in Milliways that I won't specify here because the five people on my flist who care are fellow Milliwaysers and already know. For the most part. But trust me, they are ridiculous. (The things. Not the people.)

* Whiling away boring lectures by writing terrible Les Mis slash. I think I might be able to turn it into something that doesn't suck, but right now, I would not show it to another human being.



So! That's what I've been doing. Uh. I will try not to let another two weeks pass before my next post. :D?

MY BRAIN. Is a muddle. Here is what my day has contained.

* The Torchwood audio play. Yes, yes, I know I have very loudly quit Torchwood, but I have a weakness for audio stuff. And I knew it would be hilarious. And I was not wrong. I'm going to have to listen to it again soon. CANDYFLOSS.

* As per a deal I made with maggiesox, I am listening to Les Miserables in its entirety, start to finish, for the first time. Ever. I know quite a few of the songs, because we sang a medley in chorus when I was in eighth grade (mmm, uplifting) and I was still young enough then so that I now, eleven years later, still know every word. I even bought the Broadway soundtrack at that time, but being young and free of any sort of taste in music, I didn't really care much about any of the songs I didn't already know.

So. I mentioned that in Maggie's presence, and a deal was brokered: I would listen to Les Miz if she would finally listen to The Fix. I am holding up my end of the bargain, which is not exactly a chore, because I am of course enjoying it immensely.

And I just HAPPEN to have the recording with Philip Quast as Javert. Quast also plays my favorite character in The Fix, one Grahame Chandler. Total coincidence, really!

* And then there is the paper on Hamlet. We're reading Hamlet in my literary-analysis-or-whatever-the-hell-it's-called class, and had to do a "close reading" of a selection, which basically means "write at least three pages on ten to fifteen lines." I picked one of Claudius's, because I have a weakness for sympathetic villains. (See above in re: Grahame Chandler. Also, I bet we can all guess who is going to be my favorite Les Miz character.) (Incidentally, I believe Philip Quast could play an excellent Claudius. Grahame practically IS Claudius, just with polio and being in love with his nephew instead of his sister-in-law.) (See what I mean about my brain being a muddle?) Plus, it happens to contain one of my favorite selections in the play: "Do it, England/For like the Hectic in my Blood he rages/And thou must cure me." Grahame is so not the only one with a thing for his nephew.

(And yes, I managed three pages out of eleven lines effortlessly. I talk too much. If you had not noticed this, then hi, I'm Cathryn, nice to meet you.)

Also, somewhere in all that, during my play analysis class, was some brief discussion of Augustus Wilson's The Piano Lesson, which I saw last year for my Intro to Theatre class and you should totally go see it if there is a production in your area, because it's pretty awesome.

But anyway. Torchwood and Les Miz and Hamlet and too many parallels with The Fix in both casting and theme and if I DON'T have seriously strange dreams tonight, I will be very disappointed in my brain.

Today, as I probably note every year, is my grandmother's birthday. I called her and she was telling me about all the cards and phone calls she's gotten today. She said it was nice to be remembered and loved. It's her second birthday since Grandpa died, and the first was only a month and change after the fact. Last year we made a point of having a party; this year I guess people were still thinking of her a little more than before. Either that, or she noticed it more because living alone after fifty-plus years of marriage probably never quite gets comfortable.

Moving on. Let us now discuss things that are awkward!

* Sitting in class watching a 60 Minutes feature on some work your professor did because that is what she is teaching about, and in the feature she starts crying, and she IS SITTING RIGHT THERE SHOWING US THIS. I think I was blushing. She obviously did not mind, but - I did.

(This class is cool - it's about how sign language came into existence as a true language in 1990s Nicaragua. There was no sign language in Nicaragua before that. My professor played a major role in studying and documenting how it came to be. Very awesome. But WITH THE CRYING and the BEING IN THE SAME ROOM and AUGH.)

* I don't know if I'm going to survive my play analysis class, guys. We did this insane exercise where people came up with words to go with their names that matched the phoneme - oh, whatever, let's just go with first letter. Close enough for purposes of description here. But we had to do that, and we had to come up with a gesture to go with it, AND we had to repeat the names and gestures back at people, and OH MY GOD.

You know how, in Enchanted, the big musical number breaks out and Patrick Dempsey has no idea what in the blue hell is going on? And he continues not to get it for the entire thing? And there's this one truly awesome shot where people are throwing their arms in the air, and he's got his sarcastically half-extended with, like, still-life jazz hands going on? That is how I felt. I was Patrick Dempsey with sarcastic jazz hands and I was the only one who DID NOT GET IT. I was so embarrassed. For me, for my classmates, for my professor, for everyone. I swear to god I would rather read a baseball RPS I wrote out loud to the class than EVER FUCKING DO THAT AGAIN. Is this because I am an English major and not a drama/theater major?

The moral of the story is, I have a sensitive embarrassment squick. (This is why I can never be a true John Barrowman fan.) The end.

It is August twenty-first, and classes at USM start September second. I just finished registering and accumulating further debt in the name of education. How's that for last minute action?

I didn't entirely do it on purpose - today was the orientation. It started at wtf-thirty (look, eight-thirty is too EARLY for anything school-related that isn't a class, okay?), which is a bit earlier than I am accustomed to. How not to attend an orientation: on five hours' sleep (for the third day in a row) with no breakfast and a big coffee. It's time for me to face it. I'm twenty-five. Excessive sleep deprivation has ceased to be an interesting exercise in testing my limits. Now it just sucks.

But anyway! Classes. I'm so excited. I'd pretty much taken all the good classes at SMCC and I was getting bored there. (And my grades were showing it, oops.) I am not yet qualified for any of the really awesome classes available for English majors, but that's only a semester away. I just gotta take one more frigging class about how to analyze literature, which is something I do regularly for FUN so I think I'm all set there, and then I can start the cool stuff. Even so, though, I still get to take fun classes, like Acting for Non-Actors, Fiction - the Genre (which sounds like a low-rent sequel, but never mind), and another one I can't remember because my brain did not exist by the time I got to scheduling. The English department chair, who was there to advise on schedules, was really impressed that I'd finished mine more or less on my own. (Then he had to coach me on filling out a really basic form, because my blood sugar was in the basement and I'd kind of forgotten things like how to write words, but these things happen.) Three of my classes are the once-a-week ones, but that's what happens when you register less then two weeks before classes start. I'm just grateful I wasn't stuck with completely random shit that had nothing to do with anything.

By the way, I'm so happy I can officially say I'm majoring in English now. I can finally stop explaining about how I'm in Liberal Studies at the moment, because it's the closest to an English major that blah blah blah. ENGLISH. MAJOR. NOW QUALIFIED TO BE TOTALLY PRETENTIOUS WITH NO WARNING WHATSOEVER. FUCK YEAH.

So after that, I had food. I know you were worried. I had an egg salad wrap and overly sweet lemonade, which I guess were light enough to be acceptable after being hungry so long, because I didn't get sick. I really don't know why I wrote that last sentence. I'm still tired and probably not making with the sense in the traditional idea of the word. Anyway, I went to financial aid to borrow money, and the lady who helped me was awesome. She was really sarcastically perky and helpful and we both ended up laughing as I was leaving the office, whch is probably a nice change for someone who works in the financial aid department.

Then I got to go home, and technically I live within walking distance of campus, which is nice, but the walk home involves a hike up the steepest fucking hill in all of Maine, which is not so fun. And now I'm looking at the semester schedule, and check this out: We have Election Day off entirely! I have never heard of that before, but it is so awesome. It will give me time to do something to celebrate voting for Obama, instead of just trying to squeeze it into my day like I had to four years ago. (Well, every year, I haven't missed a year since I turned eighteen, but it's only my second Presidential Election Day.) So I'm excited about that, too.

So! Now all I have to do is figure out a decent work schedule and force myself to remember that just because I can designate a day or half-day available for work doesn't mean I should. I'm not in community college anymore. USM is going to be more work, and I'm putting myself deeper into debt than I might otherwise so I can AVOID having to work too much and be able to focus on classes. I even signed up for the mentor program. Gotta keep more organized and in touch.

And speaking of ridiculous, one of those papers I'm finally getting in gear on is about the baseball teams I followed in 2005. (It's gonna be thirty pages by the time I'm done, and we're workshopping these. Everyone is going to hate me so hard. But whatever, that's what happens when my instructor basically tells me to write a shitty first draft and put down everything that my brain vomits up.) And you know, I tend to refer to the 2005 Tigers as a giant soap opera, but, unless I take a few minutes to really dredge it up, I forget how fucking insane that team really was.

Highlights include!

* Signing Magglio Ordoñez, putting language in his contract to protect the team from his bad knees, and losing him for half the season to a HERNIA about five seconds after the press conference.

* Signing Troy Percival, losing him immediately to injury, using Ugueth Urbina to close games, getting Percival back, trading Urbina two days later after he caused trouble on the team plane, Percival getting himself re-injured and never playing as a Tiger again, using Kyle Farnsworth to close, and then trading Farnsworth and having NO ONE to close. It doesn't QUITE rival the 2007 A's Ongoing Catching Saga for sheer psychosis, but only because nobody was actually told to avoid preparing for a role that they were subsequently asked to fill.

* Ugueth Urbina later being charged with attempted murder in his home country of Venezuela, where he is currently serving a fourteen year sentence. No, I'm not making that up. Go ahead and read it again. I'll wait.

* And let's not forget Roman Colón, one of the players we got for Farnsworth, going berserk last year and breaking the Mud Hens catcher's face. Neither of these things technically occurred in 2005, but they really augment the overall madness quite nicely.

* The brawl with the Royals. This remains one of my top five moments in baseball. "Kyle Farnsworth with a big-time takedown!"

* The entire team pretty much packing it in a month early, leading me to wish that the season would freaking end already so that the torment would stop.

* Jeremy Bonderman being shut down for the season for elbow problems with about a month to go. He would later admit that the elbow had been bothering him SINCE SPRING TRAINING.

* Pudge Rodriguez laying the blame for the team's sucky play as his teammates' feet.



I still feel as though I'm forgetting things. And let's not forget that I was ALSO following two other teams at the time, both of which made it to the postseason and one of which made it all the way to the World Series. How did I not just have a complete fucking nervous breakdown during the season? It's little wonder that I gave up on devoting equal attention to three teams after that. I burned out.

OH MY GOD YOU GUYS.

So on Wednesday I left my once-a-week Varieties of Non-Fiction class early due to still being sick and pushing myself a little too far a little too soon. And last night I get an e-mail from a classmate letting me know that the essay we have due - oh, I'm sorry, I mean the ESSAI, it is FRENCH, guys, I'm taking a class where I write ESSAIS and the instructor uses "intentionality" in an actual sentence in an unironic fashion, like, could I have FOUND a more pretentious class at SMCC, I think NOT - but anyway, my classmate kindly e-mails to let me know that the ESSAI is due on Monday. For a Wednesday class. Naturally. I appreciate this gesture because I was just going to ask her during our Monday class if we missed anything, so that would have gotten interesting in a hurry.

So we're supposed to e-mail the ESSAI to the instructor by nine tomorrow night, and the instructor herself (whose name I will not be using as I have seen a member of the flist get almost-screwed by vanity Googling, and my instructor - kinda strikes me as the type) e-mails to let me know that she requires the ESSAIS as Word doc attachments. So I tell her, hey, I have a Mac without virus protection that could potentially pass along something nice and lethal to your PC, so can I copy/paste into the body of the e-mail?

Her reply?

"My system will block any document without virus protection, so I guess you'll have to paste your essai into the email. I hope I can copy it into a Word document. We'll see."

You'll see? You'll see??? IS THERE SOMETHING ABOUT CTRL+C FOLLOWED BY CTRL+V THAT ESCAPES YOU? IS THERE A NUANCE IN THERE THAT YOU ARE NOT GRASPING? HIGHLIGHT. COPY. SWITCH PROGRAMS. PASTE.

WHAT THE FUCK YOU GUYS. She does have very exacting requirements regarding length, but it's not like I don't HAVE a word processing program, and one that is highly superior to fucking Word at that. I would just like to avoid killing her computer! I'm so sorry my attempt at courtesy is such a pain in the ass! Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go write an ESSAI instead of working on my Wellesley transfer application that I already lost a fucking week and a half on because of being sick because the ESSAI is due two days before the motherfucking class!

I'm so glad this class is only once a week. "Intentionality." Christ.

THINGS THAT ARE AWESOME.

* DEXTER. How do you keep getting better every week without a false step? How? All season, I have been in "can't wait for the next ep" mode. Now I am in "CANNOT FUCKING WAIT FOR THE NEXT EP IS IT MONDAY YET WHERE IS MY DOWNLOAD OMG" mode. Every week this show builds the tension and the story and now ( spoilers for the last ep, and also HOLY CRAP ) The only reason we know Dexter will get out of it all is because there's going to be a third season. Otherwise, I wouldn't feel too confident, because a show this unflinchingly intense and honest would have no problem ending its run with the serial killer protagonist rolling up his sleeve for that lethal injection. But they've got the noose around his neck, and I don't have any clear, solid ideas on how he's going to wriggle out of it. ( Spoiler-free speculation cut just in case. )

* Bank of America charged me a total of forty bucks for a couple of overdrafts that added up to twelve dollars and change. The type of accounts I have, one specially designed for college students, comes with one "get out of jail free" card in regards to overdraft fees, and I was pretty sure I hadn't used it yet, so I went down to the bank this afternoon in hopes of getting twenty bucks back, but not feeling too optimistic.

They refunded the entire forty dollars. How awesome is that? Considering that they're a big chain and I hold a free account, I didn't really think I'd see my money again, but I guess they get the whole customer service thing after all.

So! If you are in need of a bank, and a credit union isn't feasible for whatever reason (always go with a credit union if you can, they are the best; I miss the one I was using, but it was too hard for me to get there to make deposits during the semester since I don't drive), you could do worse than Bank of America.

* . . . of course, in the long run, the joke's on me. I've come up short of money this semester for many reasons, mostly involving every single one of my expenses going up all at once, plus the structure of winter vacation doesn't allow, in either December or January, for me to work enough to scrape rent money together. Last year, Grandpa made up the difference during vacation, but he's gone now and took half their income with him. He saved plenty, so Grandma's not going to be having Alpo for dinner, but he was the financial mind in their marriage. I know they could afford what he gave me, because he would have flat-out told me otherwise, but now that Grandma's on her own and doesn't have a clue about all the portfolio stuff Grandpa had going, I'm not comfortable asking her for that much money. So instead I asked her to co-sign an extra student loan so that I will have a place to live until I get my next financial aid check in February. I've been stressing about it hard, since the first place I tried (which, ironically, I already have my Stafford loans with, wtf) shot us down because my credit history is not as shiny as it might be. I applied for a loan through Bank of America today and, since they use the co-signer's credit history as a basis for approval, it got approved. Thank fuck. I mean, I wasn't gonna end up homeless, since Grandma said she would lend me the money if I needed up, but I am really, really glad she doesn't have to. So it looks like Bank of America will be making plenty off me after all. Don't get me wrong, it was a relatively small amount, and my student loan debt is miniscule compared to what so many people graduate with these days - but it'll still be more than forty bucks in the end.

I was gonna put more stuff, but a thing that is not awesome is that I e-mailed my Sport Psych instructor on WEDNESDAY to let her know that I would be missing Thursday class and was there anything I needed for tomorrow, and she got back to me THIS AFTERNOON to tell me about an assignment. Because having time over the weekend to work on it wouldn't have been kinda nice or anything. Oh, well. I probably wouldn't have anyway.

Something I Hate About Biology Class:

The diagrams never, EVER look anything like the photos or the specimens, making it impossible to label things with any confidence of being correct. I know, every specimen is a little different, yadda yadda, but a little resemblance would not hurt. Or, hey, how about using an actual photo for us to label?

Whatever. So much for the sheep's heart. Now I have to go label this thing that looks nothing like the frog I dissected last weekend. (PS, dissecting things is Something I Love About Biology Class. Just to be fair.)

So today I got a chance to go see a play. My Intro to Theatre class requires two reviews of professional productions, and one of the theatres downtown offers a "pay what you can" night a couple times during each run. I happened to run into a classmate who mentioned that she was going to pick up her ticket, so I jumped on the chance (because, two professional productions? Not a cheap assignment) to have her pick up one for me too.

This made my long day even longer - on Tuesdays and Thursdays I'm awake at six-fifteen and don't get home until around five as it is, and the play started at seven-thirty - but man, was it worth it. The play was The Piano Lesson, by August Wilson. It got off to an extremely slow start, but once it clicked into gear, it was fantastic. I have no idea where to start with my review. I'm going to need to let it all settle for a few days first.

Bonus: I was at a play instead of watching the game. The wailing and rending of garments on the flist makes me see annoying Boy Willie in a whole new light. Thanks, Boy Willie, for not being the Red Sox pitching staff!

Right. So.

I left my computer at Circuit City yesterday so they could do a diagnostic, but they're pretty sure they'll have to send it in for repairs. The guy said officially it would be three or four days before they could tell me for sure, but probably it would be sooner.

This sucks. I hate not having my computer. I do everything on my computer. I've got to get my Mac fixed. I need a backup, especially now that I'm in college. I'm not sure what my odds on getting an iBook G4 fixed for a non-astronomical rate are, butcha know what? Apple offers student discounts on new products. If I can qualify for a monthly payment plan, maybe a MacBook wouldn't be a bad option. Before I was in college, losing my computer temporarily was annoying and inconvenient. Now it's problematic.

I guess we'll see. Right now I'm annoyed that a difficult assignment for Sport Psychology (made difficult by the fact that I have no personal sports experience and am going to have to quiz someone, which will at least double the amount of time I'll have to spend on the assignment) is further complicated by having to wait until just before the class to type it up, not the mention the fact that I'm going to miss the Tigers/A's series. Life is rough. D:

I spent an hour in line getting textbooks today. No, not because of messy handling or hordes of students. Because the power went out and the computers were down for forty-five minutes. It was kind of fun, actually. After all the impatient grumblers split, the rest of us hung out and made jokes. Plus, the employees handed out Tootsie Pops. Free candy never goes amiss.

(On the other hand . . . HOW TO TELL YOU ARE AN ADULT: You eat a lollipop, and then wish you had your toothbrush because the sugar is coating your mouth, then realize five years ago you would have thought that was lame.)

In the alarming lulz department, Marco Scutaro has a death wish.

Marco Scutaro went for his MRI on Monday but declined to have the exam because he felt claustrophobic in the tube. He was in the lineup anyway and hopes to continue playing despite recent bouts with dizziness that might be linked to vertigo.

He spoke of continued "ringing in my ear" and expressed concerns about his brain. But he said, "I feel fine - I guess that stuff comes and goes," and he took the field as the starting shortstop.

If he experiences further dizziness, the A's might try an MRI again.

"One day, I hope the ringing will go away," said Scutaro, who went 0-for-6.

OH MY GOD. He is having DIZZINESS and RINGING IN HIS EARS but yeah, fuck the MRI. Dizziness and ringing, the shit comes and goes. And lord knows the decision not to have it checked out isn't a worryingly illogical and potentially harmful choice that could maybe be a symptom of something more severe. Marco, I really hope you don't have a stroke or anything.

Buffy: Was it sudden? Your mother?
Tara: No. Yes. It's always sudden.

I realized it's been a week since my last post, so I thought I'd post to let you all know that I'm still around and sane. I haven't collapsed into a grief-stricken catatonia or anything. I'm doing okay - lot going on to keep me busy, with the still newish job and all.

I saw my doctor last week to address some back problems I've had for years but haven't been too bad, until this job. The way I stand when I'm washing dishes or making pizza or a hundred other things is exactly the posture that makes it flare up, and it's aggravated so badly now that I have to stop working every now and then to bend over and try to stretch it out a little. He gave me some exercises to do to strengthen the muscles, so hopefully that will help.

We also discussed my ADD medication. I was taking Adderall, which has such a short life that I found myself occasionally taking a second dose to keep the effects through my nine-hour shifts. I have ADD, and the medication really helps to keep me focused. I thought about it and realized that even though I won't be working the long shifts during the semester, I'm going to have some long days on campus where a single dose just wouldn't cut it. I was thinking of perhaps altering my prescription to include a second smaller dose, but instead he put me on Adderall XR. It does what Adderall does, but it lasts hours longer, plus it doesn't hit my bloodstream like a quadruple espresso delivered by a Mack truck. (Seriously, that first hour or so after a dose? Exactly what you'd expect speed to be like. I do not miss it.) It's so much better than the regular Adderall. I'm really happy with it.

And then a few days later I got my hair cut into possibly the best cut I've ever had. It's just a simple chin-length layered bob, but it is insanely flattering and perfect for the type of hair I had. The stylist commented on how she didn't have to do any real styling because it fell right into place. Then I went home and dyed it auburn, which is also working really nicely. There will be photos when I can find the motivation to snap a million of them.

(Side note: I kept my hair black for about four years, from sixteen to twenty. No reason [read: it was not a wannabe goth phase] - I just liked it. Grandpa hated it. It wasn't natural. He always had something to say about it whenever he saw me, but I blew it off, because whatever, my hair. Once he even offered to give me a kelly green t-shirt of his if I would dye my hair that color. I suspect he'd like the auburn better, by which I mean he'd say, "At least it's not black. That looked awful." Thank goodness none of us grandkids ever had the urge to go pink or blue.)

Work is work. I like the job pretty well, but I think I'd fall asleep typing about it and you'd all skip reading it. Suffice it to say that I work with some great people, I get to work with food, and it beats the everloving hell out of my old job.

Classes start again on Monday. I am so excited. I've been looking forward to them since about two weeks after last semester ended, because it turns out that when I am learning voluntarily, I am a giant school geek. Plus, I have some cool classes. I'm taking Intro to Theater (which is an English credit, score), Sport Psychology (the entire reason I took Psych was because it was a prereq for this class), and Spanish II. I am also taking Biology to fulfill the science requirement, which bleah, I hated Bio in high school and needed three tries to pass it because my apathy ran deep, and I'm taking it on Saturdays in like three hour chunks plus labs so double bleah, but, since I go to a community college and they hire a lot of retired teachers and the like, the instructor is actually a teacher I had in high school! I liked him. All, um, two or three or eighteen times I had him until I finally passed a class to get the science credit. (Getting the science credits I needed to graduate high school was like pulling teeth. I was having problems with major burnout from then-undiagnosed ADD. I took math at the dummy level all three years I had to take it and was able to cruise through and get high enough grades to pass without a ton of effort, but the science classes needed more effort than I was willing/able to put into them.) Poor Mr Willink. I hope he didn't cry when he saw my name on the list. If nothing else, I will do my best in Biology because I owe him that much. He certainly put up with more than enough nonsense from me a few years ago.

I think that's about it, all the major stuff going on in the past week or next week. Also, I love Magglio Ordonez. You know, when Clemens was with the Astros, I was Rocket Poison. He lost every start that I watched, listened to, or thought about. I wonder if that still holds true.