(no subject)

[brokenrecord]

I got major secondhand embarrassment from Erica going to see one of the guys who gave the book a bad review because it's like... you're not going to get anywhere, you're not going to change his mind, he's not the only one who feels that way, there's no point. But I appreciated him telling Erica that his issue was with the book telling people to settle because THAT'S TOTALLY WHAT SHE'S DOING WITH ETHAN. God their relationship is so boring. Not that Kai's even her soulmate, but she totally needs to take a risk on him and stop playing safe by being with Ethan.

I was irrationally annoyed with Ethan throughout the beginning of the episode whenever he was comforting her. First on the bad reviews, he was like "Those are just some people's opinions! No big deal!" Like, uh, yeah, but book reviewers reviews are more important than, say, some random people's opinions on the internet, you know. (In terms of her job, I mean.) And when she comes back after being fired, he's just like "Don't worry, everything will be fine!" I don't know, I mean if I were Erica, I'd want someone sympathizing with me more, you know? Not just saying "Everything will be fine!" but something more like "That's really awful, I feel so bad for you, maybe we can fix it by doing x, y, and z" or whatever. I don't know. He just didn't seem sympathetic! But he also doesn't seem to have any personality, so maybe that's part of it.

Ethan's reaction to her decision to start a publishing company kind of shows exactly what their relationship is like. Ethan is the safe choice. Erica knows what their relationship is like, and it's safe and comfortable. This also kind of came up earlier in the season when she wanted to try some more adventurous sexual things and he was like "...no." I feel like if she stayed with Ethan, she could be... ok. Content even. But she wouldn't be truly happy. I just want her to take a risk with Kai already, ok! I'm kind of terrified he's only around for this season, and I don't want that. He also better never return to the future. Just saying.

I think it's kind of telling that she wasn't concerned at all with the fact that in the alternate reality she was with some random guy and not Ethan.

There was a serious, serious lack of Kai/Erica in this episode. Just saying. Especially since next week is maybe the season finale? I don't know. Last season was 12 episodes; is this season as well? Does anyone know when it's coming back? Does anyone besides me even watch this show?


I'm a member of Entertainment Weekly's Front Panel thing where you give your opinions about various stuff, just because I like giving my opinion about TV shows and movies and all that stuff. Anyways, yesterday in the mail I got a USB drive from them with the pilot from a new show or something. I don't know, I haven't watched it yet, but OMG THE USB DRIVE IS ADORABLE. I realize this is not what I should be focusing on, but seriously. It's in the shape of like a casette tape, and I don't even know, it's just really awesome. Also, it's really cool to be sent a new TV show to look at! It doesn't seem like a show I'd be interested in from the name and picture of it, but I'll maybe check it out this weekend if I have time. In any case, I'll post a picture of the USB because omg so cute. I hope I don't have to return it.

I think I'm quitting Wind Ensemble next semester. We had a meeting yesterday where our conductor told us that next semester (and also basically all next year) we're going to small ensembles instead of the big Wind Ensemble. Mostly because next year the fine arts building is going to be totally remodeled so there won't really be room for large ensembles. And so they're going to start the transition next semester. Also because the conductor wants to improve each person's playing and this way everyone will get more individual attention.

The thing is, I did Solo and Ensemble Festival in high school for 4 years so I have been in several different ensembles, and the only ones that were fun was the oboe/clarinet duet I did with Galaxy and the saxophone quartet with Emma, Mukul, and Nathan. And the only reasons those were fun was because of the people in the ensembles. And, I mean, I don't really want to improve my playing. I mean, I wouldn't mind getting better, but it's not a goal. I'm not going to become a professional tenor sax player, and I have no intention of doing anything after college, either. I can play well enough that I can play all the pieces and the conductor never asks me to practice any section more or had criticism or whatever.

Really, I just am in band right now because I do like playing in general, and because the ensemble is super small and we already don't have a bassoon or bass clarinet, so I cover a lot of those parts. And I'd feel bad quitting. But if we're going to ensembles, that's not important. I had already been considering quitting next year, anyways. At least now I have an excuse. And I think a large reason I joined was because I had just come out of 4 years of being super involved in various bands in high school, and I developed great friendships there as well, so I guess I was hoping to continue all of that in college. But that didn't happen, and I don't need that anymore anyways.

A part of me does feel a little weird/sad at the thought that I might never play the tenor sax again, but more of me is happy that I'll have Mondays and Wednesdays from 4:45-6 back next semester.

I went to go through analyzing my results with my Directed Research adviser this morning, and I discovered that I accidentally left out one question for one of the scales I used. I feel so stupid. It's really not a big deal she said, since it's only one question and loads of people have done it before, but I feel stupid. Also, I have to go through all my data because some of the questions were about how many hours a person did an activity, and many people put a range, such as 2-3, but when I downloaded the results into Excel, Excel decided to automatically make 2-3 a date, so it displays as 02/03/2009 instead of the actual result. And when I change the format of the cells to general (instead of date), it gets all screwy. So I have to do it manually. ugh. I thought my data was all cleaned up for analysis, but it had so many issues, so now I have to clean it more and then meet my adviser again tomorrow to go through it. sigh. At least in 2 weeks this will all be over!