brokenrecord

I was taking a practice quiz for my social psych exam from the textbook's website and a lot of the questions are like... situations or whatever and then you have to choose whichever psychological principle fits, but there was totally one question where it was talking about a guy named Nick and then it was like "He is attracted to 2 men on a dating website..." and I was like "Hey, way to be not totally heteronormative, textbook! A+!" idk, I found it cool.

GLEE IS BACK IN LESS THAN A WEEK! For some reason I thought it wasn't coming back for 2 weeks, but I think I missed that a week has passed since last week, the last time I checked. idk, this past week has gone kind of fast, probably since I'm so busy. But yay, anyways!

I've been getting a little bored of the music I've been listening to recently, so I got a bunch of new stuff (...most of which has been played on Chuck at some point. That show has really good music, ok?). Anyways, I'm mentioning this mostly just to say that omg I really, really adore Broken Records. I got one of their songs last... July or August or so, and I really liked it, and I don't know why I didn't get their whole album after that, but I listened to another yesterday and I absolutely fell in love with it so I bought the whole album and it is so good. I also discovered Carla Bruni through Chuck (I get a lot of my music from that show. It's kind of ridiculous, but they play a lot of awesome music, and I'm too lazy to go out looking on my own most of the time), and then after listening to a few of her songs, I found out that she's Nicholas Sarkozy (the president of France)'s wife. Random and bizarre. (But I really like her music. It reminds me actually of the music from Les Chansons d'amour, and not just because it's in French. Well, not entirely). Anyways, yay for new music!

Done with my social psych exam (which went pretty well. Maybe not quite as well as the last one, but I got a 100 on that, and I feel like I did better than a B/B+, so I should be fine. Not really worried about it, anyways). Just my class facilitation left (of course it's the most intimidating and the most work of everything I had this week). I pretty much just have to work all afternoon and night on it. I feel like that's all I've been doing (I mean, working in general, not on this specific thing) since last Wednesday/Thursday. So tired of it. And even though it's my last thing I am actually being graded on this week, I have to meet with my group for a group presentation I have next week and we agreed last time we met we would do research on our assigned sections and have slides put together, and of course I've done zero since I've been caught up in all this other stuff, so once I'm done with the facilitation tomorrow, I get to spend all of my time research and putting together some slides before we meet at 9 PM. ugh. But Friday! I will finally be able to relax on Friday! (I mean, I have some stuff next week, but nothing as major or time-consuming as this week.) I cannot wait.

( Doctor Who )

I'm getting really excited about my new apartment now. Immediately afterwards I was less excited and more nervous that my parents might get annoyed with me and I was worried about all the logistics in getting subletters and crap, but now I'm letting myself just be excited. I'm really looking forward to living there (although it feels like forever before that'll happen). I'm dying to have my own room (not that sharing a room with Li is bad or anything, I just definitely prefer having privacy and I'm looking forward to being able to organize and decorate the room exactly how I want and not having to worry about when I want to go to sleep early and she stays up late or vice versa), and sharing a bathroom with only one person will be much nicer, and there are hardwood floors! (Have I mentioned how much I want hardwood floors? Because it's a lot.) And I feel like... cleaning the apartment and stuff will be easier with only 2 people (I can even base this on psychological principles! The more people around, the more you're going to be like "Well, someone else will take care of it" and so you don't do anything. It's like the Bystander Effect, where everyone watches some horrible accident or whatever occur, but no one tries to help or calls 911 or anything because they all assume someone else will). And I'll also be really happy to have an apartment that's only one level; I get annoyed with having to go downstairs whenever I want to cook something, and laundry is two floors down (laundry at the new place is like one floor down still, but I don't have to go through someone's room to get there, like I do now, which I feel gives me greater flexibility in doing laundry). This is not to say that I don't enjoy the apartment I'm at now, because I do, and I'm sure there will be flaws in the new apartment (like, one of the bedrooms has a closet that's super small, and the other bedroom doesn't have a closet at all, but instead has like... a rod kind of? idk, at some point I'll post pictures, although probably not for 2+ months, and right now the closets we have are absolutely huge, which is good since I have many clothes. Also, the new apartment might not have a garbage disposal). But I'm still really excited and eager to move in, even though that won't happen until late May at the earliest, early September at the latest.

This 3-day weekend has gone pretty well, productivity-wise. I mean, obviously getting an apartment was productive and one less thing to worry about, but I've made good progress on schoolwork. I still feel a little behind just because of how much I have left to do (finished 2 assignments, but I still have 2 exams I've barely studied for and my class facilitation thing on Thursday, which I'm like... 35-50% done with the powerpoint and research and all that, I think). But I'm feeling a little better about this week now than I was a week ago, at least, and about my class facilitation specifically (I mean, I'll still be nervous as hell, but at least I'm more comfortable with what I'm going to talk about). So hopefully I'll make it through the week in one piece.

Anyways, time to start studying for my Origins exam!

It's time again for registering for classes, and I don't know what to take. ( Classes Stuff )

Today Li and I are going to look at an apartment for next year. We also have a time set up to view another on Monday. Unfortunately both apartments are starting in June, and we were both not planning on moving in until September. The landlord of one of the places said that if we want to start in September, we'd have to wait until later in the year to look for apartments, but that we wouldn't be guaranteed anything. So I don't know. I mean, we could get subletters, but subletters don't usually have their own furniture or wouldn't want to move in furniture for just 3 months, and I won't be around to move my furniture in for whoever to use. But we'll see. I mean, I'd rather get a place that starts in June than no place at all, of course. I'm trying not to be too stressed out about this (which is hard, since I tend to freak out and worry over every little things, even things that aren't really that important).

I have today off because of Good Friday, which is nice. Unfortunately I can't really enjoy this 3-day weekend because of how much schoolwork I have to do. I've finished one small thing I had to do for Monday, but I still have a 5-page social psych paper, two exams, and leading my Mood and Anxiety class for 45 minutes (which involves doing a lot of research and I'm tired of it already). blah. But this is pretty much my last busy week until the last week of school (which will involve exams in Origins and Social Psych, my german final, a short social psych paper like the one I have due Monday, and my final paper for Mood and Anxiety. Although hopefully I'll have much of my Mood and Anxiety final paper done a little sooner than that. I should probably start working on that once this class presentation thing is done.

Anyways, time to try to get some work done before visiting that apartment later!

( Chuck - 3.12 )

School right now is... okay. This week is fine (I just have that group podcast due tomorrow, and we've already finished recording. We just maybe need to cut it down a little since it's over the time limit and we need to organize our transcript and bibliography, but we're pretty much done, thankfully. I'll be so happy when that project is turned in and done with. Although, to be fair, it didn't turn out to be as bad as I thought it would). But next week, ugh. I have a German essay, short social psych paper, and Origins exam on Monday, Social Psych exam on Wednesday, and I have to lead my Mood and Anxiety class for 45 minutes on Thursday (which involves a lot of research and preparation and I'm already tired of it. I've read so many articles on treating PTSD, you have no idea). Then I have a group project for that class a week from that Thursday, and we've been working on it now which is good so we don't leave it until the last minute, but bad because omg I'm tired of group projects. Both for this one and my Origins podcast group project, the people in my group are great and all, but I just don't enjoy working in groups. I just want to get everything done on my own time, and having to schedule times when 3-4 people can meet can get really difficult.

On the plus side, we have a 3-day weekend for Good Friday this week, which will definitely help with getting everything done. Also, it's been super nice weather-wise for Minnesota at this time, and there are no signs (thus far) that the weather is going to get really cold or start sleeting or whatever anytime soon. Tomorrow it's supposed to be up to 78 degrees! So that's nice. And Li and I are going to start looking for an apartment hopefully this week for next year, which hopefully won't be too difficult.

Anyways, I have to go meet with my Mood and Anxiety professor now about my leading the class next week (which I'm nervous about since I feel like I haven't done enough research or have a good enough idea to meet with her yet, but we made the meeting last week and I didn't realize how long researching for this would take and I'm supposed to have an article for the class to read chosen by Thursday so I can't really put it off any longer. ugh.

I think I'm going to try to start reccing awesome movies I've seen (and even try to write more reviews of all movies I see when I see them rather than posting them all together at the end of the year, but since I've been meaning to do that since January and haven't yet, I think that might be less likely). Anyways, the first one is going to be Memento. I watched with my mom last night, and it's not my first time seeing it (my third time, actually, and it was #3 on my favorite films of the decade picspam I posted last December), but every time I see it or just think about it, I have to rec it. It's just so freaking good. If you haven't seen it, you have to. It's directed by Christopher Nolan, who also did Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Prestige, which are all excellent films, but this is my favorite of his (that I've seen). ( Why you should watch Memento )

My dad totally randomly met Tiffany (the singer, who was in the HIMYM episode Sandcastles in the Sand, which is where I know her from) the other day. He told her that he really enjoyed seeing her on HIMYM. I find this all very amusing for some reason. It was just so random!

I've gotten so behind on TV, it's ridiculous. I'm caught up on a few of my favorite shows, but even others that I really love (like Lost), I'm behind on. I don't know why, I just got out of the habit of watching so much TV when I didn't have internet for a few weeks and then there wasn't much on because of the Olympics. I'm just so behind that I don't know where to start, so I haven't been watching anything. And I've been much more in the mood to read books and watch movies, which hasn't helped either. Eventually I'll get in the mood again and try to catch up, but I feel like that might not be for awhile.

Today is my last full day left here! I'm flying back tomorrow morning. I was dreading going back most of the week because of this group project I had due Wednesday which we hadn't started on because the last piece of this group project was due right before spring break, so we really had no time to do it because had to do the other part first, and since this is a project we have to do all together in person (meaning, we can't complete it separately and through e-mails and such), we only would really have had Monday and Tuesday to complete it, which is pretty ridiculous and was stressing me out a lot. But then my professor e-mailed all of us and said she was pushing it back a week, so now next week is so much nicer. I do have a super-short German essay due Wednesday and a German exam on Friday, but neither is going to be super intense or stressful (particularly since I have a 100 in German right now), so now I'm much more positive about going back. And there are really only like 6 1/2 weeks left of school once I get back. Not too bad. Although once school is out I need to find somewhere to volunteer so I can be productive with my summer, and ugh, I hate applying to places and all that. And then in the fall I have to start applying to grad schools, and that's even worse. So maybe I shouldn't be in such a rush for the semester to be over. =/

( Academy Awards Reactions )

omg it's so warm all of the sudden! It's wonderful! Last week it was getting warmer, but it was still cold enough that even though a bunch of snow and ice would melt during the day, as soon as the sun set, ice would cover the ground, making it very difficult to walk anywhere at night or in the early morning before it melted again. But now! Oh man, it was 48 degrees at 6:40 PM last night! Last year it got warm around this time, but it was only during spring break, and then it got cold again so I totally missed it. I am definitely enjoying it right now. I'm sure it will get cold again and even snow a few more times, but for now I'm just going to pretend that it will be this warm for the rest of the semester.

I finished North and South last night! I managed to finish what I needed to get done on my paper early, and I ended up reading it during all the commercials during the Oscars and the Red Carpet, so I managed to get through it. There were definitely parts I liked more in the book than the mini-series, but there were also several parts I liked much more in the mini-series than the book, and I think overall I liked the mini-series more, if only because I liked the proposal scene in the mini-series more, and the ending was so much more satisfying (the book ended rather abruptly, and when reading the book, you can't see Mr. Thornton smiling when he sees Margaret and throughout their entire discussion, and how he asks her if she's coming home with him, and it's just so lovely). There are a bunch of Dickens I want to read (namely, Little Dorrit, Bleak House, and Our Mutual Friend), but I think I want to wait at least a week to start any of them because part of the problem when reading North and South for me was that I was so familiar with what was going on from having watched it only a day or so before I started it that I found myself rushing through parts because there was another part I knew I wanted to get to, and I think my ultimate enjoyment suffered from that. So I think I'm going to either read Agnes Grey, Cecilia, or... something by Georgette Heyer (haven't decided what yet).

I've been dreading this week since like... the beginning of last week or so, when I realized how busy I would be, but it's actually not turning out too bad. I'm done with my paper except I still need an intro and conclusion (but those take very little time) and I need to do some editing, but we're doing a peer review of the midterms on Wednesday, so I have 2 days to finish it and make the changes I want. The hard part's done, in any case. And I also have that stupid evolution project podcast promo, but originally it was due Monday and it was pushed back until Thursday, so that's relieved a little of my stress, and I kind of have an idea for what I'm going to do for it. So tonight I'll figure out exactly what I want to say and tomorrow I'll record it and edit it, and theoretically I should be done with it by tomorrow night. And now only 4 days until Spring Break! I can't wait.

This upcoming week is the last before Spring Break, so it's basically midterms week. I only have two major assignments, but they're both really difficult and time-consuming and not fun. One is a take-home midterm which is really a 5-7 page paper for Mood and Anxiety that she just assigned this week. It's not due until Friday, but we have to get someone else in the class to peer review it, so I really need to have it done by this weekend. The topic is actually interesting, and I do love the class, but I really detest writing papers, and it's so hard to motivate myself. But 5 pages really isn't that bad, and she's not the sort of professor who's going to be really hard on you if you write less than 5. Still, I get such a mental block when I'm writing papers, and I'd really just prefer to take exams. On the plus side, I pretty much have figured out what I'm going to do and have it all outlined in my head; I just need to put it to paper now (which of course is the hard part. And coming up with a thesis, which I haven't done yet either). I'm hoping to at least have the paper half-done by dinner (so, I want to get about 2-3 pages written in 4 hours, which is certainly doable, provided I stop procrastinating here and get to writing), but of course finishing it all would be ideal.

My other assignment is a little more complicated to explain. We have this group project for my evolution class which is to make a podcast about a topic related to evolution, which is annoying enough as it is (I had creative projects like this, especially ones that require technology I've never used before. And I hate group projects as well). But for next week, we're supposed to individually come up with a 60-second promo for our podcast. Which I find completely pointless. For one thing, 60 seconds is really long for a promo, IMO, especially when the podcast only needs to be 3-5 minutes. For another, it's not like we're going to go over any information in the promo that won't be covered in the podcast. idk, it just seems so incredibly worthless and a waste of time. It's not due until Thursday, and I don't even want to start thinking about it yet. I'm focusing on the paper first, which I'll hopefully have completely finished in time to watch the Academy Awards tomorrow night.

Since my last post, I've now also watched Bleak House and Wives and Daughters, both of which were really good (although I didn't like either as much as North and South or Little Dorrit). There are a few more miniseries I want to check out, but more than that, I've now like... rediscovered by love for 19th century British literature, and all I want to do right now is read. I'm reading North and South right now, and I really want to finish it and read other books right now, but I don't have the time to read more than like... 50 pages a day (and the book is 700 pages). I got super into British lit from this time period during my junior year of high school (English that year was entirely British lit, and omg it was awesome. There wasn't a single thing we read that I didn't enjoy that year). The past year or so I have been more in the mood to read modern/contemporary books and I have several classic books sitting in my bookshelf at home that I haven't read yet because I haven't been in the mood for years, but now I am and of course they're at home and I have no time to read them anyways. But I'll be home in just a week, and I can't wait to start reading them. I have no idea what it is about books from that period that I love, but I really do.

Anyways, on to starting actually writing my paper, and then maybe I'll have time to actually read some stuff tonight.

This past weekend was so nice! The only major thing I have this week is a German exam, and all I had to do ovecr the weekend was make flashcards and finish my German homework (neither of which was a lot of work or took a lot of time). So I spent much of Saturday and Sunday catching up on TV and watching movies. I marathoned episodes 7-14 of this season of Legend of the Seeker on Sunday, which was fun. For some reason I think I like that show more when I marathon it. And I'm finding myself really loving Cara more and more. I'm so glad that she was added this season.

On Sunday I also watched North and South for the first time, and omg I loved it so much. I mean, I love Pride and Prejudice, and this is very similar in a lot of the themes and even plot points. Not in a bad way, like it was too similar, or anything. Now I want to watch other miniseries/films like that, so does anyone have any suggestions? I'm already planning on starting Little Dorrit, and I've seen practically every version of Pride and Prejudice and I've seen the Sense and Sensibility film with Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet, but does anyone have any other suggestions? I'd really, really appreciate it!

Oh, hey, it's March! I feel like the past few weeks have sped by. Spring Break is only 2 weeks away, now! Anyways, in February I read 1 book (fewer than I would have liked, but I'm achieving my goal of at least 1 book a month, because last year despite reading 17 books, there were still way too many months where I had read 0 books), watched 23 movies (! That's almost one a day! It probably would have been more, too, if I had internet the first week or so of the month. I think that might be my record for most movies watched in one month, actually!), and 83 episodes of TV (not a lot, but I am still behind on several shows, and as I've mentioned like twice already in this paragraph alone, no internet for a week or two makes it hard to watch a lot of shows when you also don't have a TV).

American Idol time again; this time the guys! ( American Idol - Top 12 Guys )

Ugh I thought it was bad last semester when I was going out for coffee every day, but now I'm starting to get into a habit of twice a day. Maybe this is why I'm having trouble falling asleep before 2 AM (and consequently why I feel so exhausted every morning and then feel the need to drink 2 cups of coffee to stay awake). I'm wasting too much money on coffee. I really need to stop that.

I normally go grocery shopping Tuesdays after my early afternoon class because it's the day I have the most time, but yesterday I decided to put it off until today to study for my Social Psych exam (and then found out later that the exam was pushed back a day, ugh). So I went today, but I was in a super rush, which led to poor decisions on my part. For one, I forgot a bunch of stuff I meant to get. Worse, though, was that I stupidly decided that I'd rather not wait 10-15 minutes for the bus in 15 degree weather and would instead walk back to my apartment. It's only 3 blocks, but those blocks are long when you're carrying really heavy bags. And I would have survived it all right, except a block from my apartment, one of the bags ripped open and all the stuff in it fell out. l;jksdf ugh. At least it was only one block away, and everything was in containers so it didn't get ruined. I managed to fit it all into the other back and my purse (and it was actually easier to carry the stuff in my purse than those bags because the handles on the bags are so thin and the bags are awkward and difficult to carry for more than a block), so everything turned out fine, but I really didn't need that much difficulty and stress in getting groceries. On the plus side, I beat the bus back to my apartment, so it wasn't a total waste. But I was emotionally and physically tired after that, so I didn't end up starting schoolwork until later than I probably should have.

...I should probably be working on stuff now, actually. I have to present a song in my German lab tomorrow. I don't even know. There are zero guidelines for this, he just sent us a humongous file of songs (I think I mentioned this a few weeks ago; it was 700 MB which is just... unreasonable) and I'm supposed to choose one and that's all I know. The guy who presented last week just chose a different song because he couldn't download the file, and he actually had, like... reasons, I guess, for choosing the song. So he had stuff to talk about. I don't know any German music. ugh, I guess I'll just choose one at random and hopefully find something to talk about. And I also have an annotated bibliography for Friday and my social psych exam Friday. Why couldn't the exam have stayed today? Or the annotated bibliography? At least then I'd be done with one of them. I can't wait until Friday afternoon. Of course, soon enough it'll be next week, and then I'll be just as busy again. sigh.

Ugh one of my major assignments for this week is this social psych assignment where I'm supposed to give this personality inventory to a friend and then rate her myself and compare, and that's not too bad, but part of it is that I first have to write like 2 pages about her various personality traits and give examples showing that she is this way, and it's just so weird, you know? I mean, it's bizarre to be like... talking about a friend this way and your friendship and all, especially for an academic assignment. It's not difficult in terms of like... for other assignments I've had to do research and analyze things and whatever else, so it's not like it's mentally strenuous talking about a friend, but it still just feels really weird. I don't know how to describe it. I didn't think it would be nearly this weird until I had to start doing it.

lol omg speaking of Social Psych, my professor in that class is very pregnant and was due during Spring Break and then after that another professor was supposed to take over the class, but I just found out that she went into labor last Friday (I was wondering why class was abruptly canceled on Friday!). ...I don't know why I'm finding this amusing, but I am. But anyways, I will have an entirely new professor today and for the first exam. I like the original professor, but she's really not a very good lecturer, so I'm hoping the new professor is better and more engaging. I'm not actually too worried about the exam. Definitely not as much as I was worried about the Origins exam (which I'm hoping we don't get back today because I don't really want to know my grade. I mean, I definitely didn't fail it, in reality I probably got at least a B, but still). I went through the review sheet she gave us last week before doing any studying at all, and I found all of the multiple choice incredibly easy. The short answer I will actually need to study for, but I don't think it'll be that tricky once I've actually gone over the material more. So as long as I manage my time well, it should be fine. And one of my assignments due for Wednesday was pushed back until Friday, so that should give me a little more time.

We started watching a film in German today, and I guess we're at the level now where we're expected to watch German films with no subtitles. Last semester we still had English subtitles, and I wish that the transition would have been made more... smoothly, I guess? Like, watch a short film without subtitles, or watch the film with German subtitles. I mean, I did feel last semester like it was kind of pointless to watch it with English because you just end up reading the English and not processing any of the German, but still. I understood so very little that was said, so it makes it hard to enjoy the movie, which is kind of lame. Oh well.

I watched the BAFTAs yesterday, and here are some random thoughts: ( BAFTAs )

I'm randomly really looking forward to the start of the American Idol Top 24. I've never watched a season before while it's aired (I caught a few random bits throughout high school, usually when I was at someone else's house, and then last year I watched the whole season after it had already aired and I had checked out Kris and Adam and fallen in love with them), so it feels kind of weird for me to be watching it, but I'm excited. I've caught some episodes of the season so far, but not all, mostly due to the fact that I hate the auditions, and also due to not having internet for weeks and not caring to catch up now that I do have internet. I did see last week's two episodes, so I have a few that I already like and am on the look-out for. I will probably get bored and stop watching the season after a few episodes, as has happened with SYTYCD for the past year or two, unless of course there's someone who turns out to be amazing who I really like (although usually I'm not into the type of music they perform and that results from the show. I am a sucker for a boy with a guitar or piano, though, and I think part of my increased interest for last season was that they could actually use instruments. I mean, I know that was true the year before, too, but... I don't know. I didn't watch and didn't know they could use instruments, for one thing, and for another, I just didn't care enough). But yeah, anyways, for now I'm pretty excited. I'm also excited for women's figure skating on Tuesday and Thursday (even though the U.S. has pretty much no hope. But still, I like figure skating. Even if it can't possibly compare to the men's figure skating last week, which was the absolute best). I'm not sure how I'm really going to fit in both Idol and figure skating. Maybe flip between the Idol commericals; there does tend to be a lot of downtime between both. And I can always listen to Idol while watching the Olympics. ...oh, and I have an exam, as I mentioned, on Wednesday. heh. Tuesday afternoon/night should be fun.