brokenrecord

( How I Met Your Mother )

( Chuck )

( The Big Bang Theory )

I've been slowly making my way through this Life of Birds BBC documentary thing on the BBC and yesterday I got to the episode that deals with baby birds and parenthood and I was like "omg yay adorable baby birdies! This will be so much fun to watch!" And then like half of it was other birds stealing baby birds for food or crocodiles attacking or even the parents killing some of their babies because they do not have enough resources to care for them all. It was like March of the Penguins all over again.

I forgot that a new Sookie Stackhouse book comes out today! I kind of have the urge to reread them all (well, not the first one, since the show followed it so closely, and there's not enough Eric. But like, I mix up what happens in the second book and second season a lot, so it would be valuable to reread the book, right?), but... I don't know. Last year it took me like an entire week to get through them all, and that was with me staying at home and reading the books all day long and really not doing anything else. I don't know if I want to waste a week or two like that again, at least not right now. And I don't know that I'm patient enough to get through all the books before getting to the new one. So it's more likely that I'll just read the new one.

I got an A- on my group presentation I did several weeks ago in Mood and Anxiety, and from what I can tell (it's hard to figure out my grade in a class when I'm only given letter grades), this makes it really hard for me to get an A in the class. I think if I get an A on the final paper and get an A in participation (both of which I think are possible, but definitely not guaranteed), then I can get an A in the class, but I'm not sure. I'm going to try to expect an A-, and if I get an A, then I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Ok, so I was way more worried and nervous about MUPC than I had to be (but then, I tend to worry unreasonable amounts about absolutely everything, so that's not surprising). It was totally fine. I actually didn't end up being very nervous when I was there in front of my poster answering questions. The people who came by were all very nice and interested in my topic, and they said it was an interesting question and all that, so it made me feel more... validated, I guess, because sometimes when I think about that project I just think it was kind of pointless or not as developed or interesting as a lot of other people's.

Also, one girl stopped by who was on my floor freshman year and became like best friends with my roommate and she was friendly to me for a few weeks and then she just kind of ignored me for the rest of the year and I kind of thought she hated me or at least didn't like me. But she was super friendly and asking questions and stuff, not just about my project but about what I was doing and stuff, and it was really weird. Like, good, but... I'm so self-conscious and critical that I couldn't help thinking "Why are you talking to me? What do you want? Is this some elaborate scheme to make fun of me? Are you pitying me? What is going on?" even though the worst thing she ever did to me was ignore me, and that's probably more to blame on my lack of social skills than on her. And I found out she's taking Understand/Confront Racism next semester like me, which should be interesting. I had another class with her sophomore year and she continued to ignore my existence, so I'm curious to see if that happens again or if she talks to me this time.

This morning, on the other hand, was kind of awful. Ok, it wasn't that bad. But, well, normally I volunteer with a couple of people at a homeless shelter with children on Saturday mornings, but we didn't do it Saturday this week because I had MUPC going on. And this is our last chance to volunteer this semester all together so we went today instead and then went out to lunch afterwards. Except I'm not used to waking up this early on a Sunday, and I stupidly stayed up really late Saturday night, so even though my alarm woke me up at 8 AM, I decided to lie in bed for just a few more minutes, and then of course I fell asleep again and didn't wake up until 8:40. Which meant I had to rush to get dressed and ready and all, and I basically had like 5 minutes to each breakfast, but everything I had would have taken too much time to make and eat. However, one of my roommates made cupcakes yesterday, so I remembered that and was like "ugh I need something to eat" so for breakfast I had a cupcake. Which might sound awesome, except it's really not enough to get you energized or moving or coherent or anything. So I pretty much just felt awful the entire time I was volunteering. I have coffee now, though, and it's awesome.

There have been some recent reports about a 4th season of Chuck not being totally hopeless and the writers/producers/creators/whoever feeling good about coming back, and I kind of wish there weren't this news only because I feel like it's making me too optimistic about it coming back. I had started accepting that this would be end and coming to terms with that and all, but now my hopes are starting to go up again, and I'm afraid there'll be this build-up and then NBC will cancel it (because NBC fails at life. They're probably freaking renew Heroes over Chuck even though Chuck does better critically and in the ratings and Heroes sucks) and it'll suck so much worse than if I had just accepted it being canceled now. blah. (Although maybe NBC will surprise me? No no, still trying not to get my hopes up.) Anyways, on a more positive Chuck-related note, Chuck comes back for the final 6 episodes on Monday! I'm so excited. We finally get to see Chuck and Sarah try to be spies while being in a relationship! Chuck's dad is coming back! Anna is coming back!!! It's going to be awesome.

( Doctor Who 5.04 )

Anyways, yesterday I had plans for doing a bunch or research for my final Mood and Anxiety paper and having it outlined and a thesis and everything so I'd be ready to write as much of it as possible today. And then I did nothing. Well done, self. So instead I'm going to do a bunch of research today and hopefully get... idk, 4 pages done? That might be feasible. If I actually start working and don't just procrastinate all day, which is much more likely.

( 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 started watching Our Mutual Friend on Netflix Instant Watch and found out after getting through the first two parts that the original version is 360 minutes in all, while the Netflix version is 300 minutes. I wasn't sure if there was a point in continuing to watch since a full hour appears to be cut out, but by the time I figured it out, I was already hooked and wanted to see what happened. It's next on my list of books to read, though, once I finish North and South (I'm about halfway done now! It's slow-going since I'm pretty much only reading 5-10 chapters a day, which isn't a lot when there is something like 52 chapters, but I think I will be through by the end of the week).

Academy Awards today! I'm so excited. Even when they don't honor what I think the best film of the year is, I love it all the same. I mean, I think they're disappointing if you expect them to be the definitive... decision, I guess, as to what the absolute best performances/film/etc. of the year are. Which I guess they are supposed to be, but film taste is obviously subjective, so it would be absolutely impossible to please everyone. So I really love watching it every year, even if the stuff I love doesn't win (with the exception of Crash winning over Brokeback Mountain, which was a travesty and I am still not over it).

Anyways, my goal for my midterm paper yesterday was to be halfway through, and I'm about 2/3 of the way through (although the first third was much simpler than the last third will be). So I only have about 2 pages left to write, which isn't too bad. My goal is to finish by an hour before the Academy Awards start so I have time both to watch the awards and to watch the final part of Our Mutual Friend, which I decided to leave to watch as motivation to get through my paper.

I have super late thoughts on Chuck and TBBT from last week:

( Chuck )

( The Big Bang Theory )

Only 5 days until Spring Break now! I really can't wait.

Today is Academy Awards Nominations Day! I adore the Academy Awards. I can't even explain why. A lot of the time they make stupid choices (well, in my opinion; film taste is, of course, subjective), and most of the time several of the films I consider best of the year get little or no attention. But, I don't know. It's just so much fun! I can't really describe it. I like award shows in general, but I greatly prefer movie award shows because for TV award shows, even fewer TV shows I love get any attention, and they nominate the same crap year after year and the same stuff wins and it's just horribly boring. But at least with movies, if there's something I hate, it's gone the next year. And for the past 3 years, the movie that won Best Picture at the Oscars I've really loved, even if it wasn't my favorite of the year (let's not mention 2005, which was one of the greatest movie award injustices in history, in my opinion).

Anyways, enough about that. Here are my opinions on the nominations, and what my ideal nominations would have been (for the 8 major categories: picture, director, the writing categories, and all the acting categories; despite taking a film class and looking online, I still don't know the difference between sound editing and sound mixing, I barely understand Art Direction, and I don't have much of an opinion about the other categories most of the time. Although I do enjoy score and cinematography typically. But I didn't feel like discussing them).

( Academy Awards Nominations Thoughts )

( Ideal Academy Awards Nominations )

(omg I spent way too much time in Dunn Brothers putting this together. At least there are some open tables so I don't feel like too much of a douche.)

I didn't mention in my last post because I had so many things to complain about, but hey, it's February! January always goes by so quickly. Probably because most of the month I don't have school. Anyways, in January I watched 261 episodes of TV (which is crazy because that's way more than I usually watch in a month, 30 more than last January, and I'm like 1 1/2-2 weeks behind on TV due to not having internet), 11 movies (more than I expected considering I only watched 2 from 01/01-01/14), and read 2 books (! crazy! I don't know if I said this before, but my goal this year is to read at least one book a month. I hope to actually read more than 12 books in the whole year, but I tend to go in phases where I'll read like 7 books in a few weeks and then nothing the rest of the year, so reading at least one book a month should actually boost the number of books I read all year. Actually, I already finished one book in February, and I'll probably get to a few more what with the stupid internet not working for another few days, so that's good. I love reading, but it's too hard to work in while I have classes because even if I have time to read, I get too sucked in to whatever I'm reading and then neglect everything else so I can finish the book, and it's just easier not to read anything).

Not being able to watch the most recent episode of Chuck is physically hurting me. Okay, not really, but it does suck. Most stuff I can deal with having to wait 1-2 weeks to watch, but not Chuck. The same is true for Greek, actually, but it just came back so I'm more used to it not being around and so it doesn't seem as tragic that I haven't seen the last episode. Also, the fact that I'm going to miss the Lost premiere sucks. Although I suppose it's easier to delay watching that when I've already been waiting months and months than to delay watching something I'm used to seeing every week. I really hope I don't get spoiled for Lost, though. =/ I suppose the fact that I'm being more productive than normal (especially at this point in the term) doesn't suck. It is weird though. And I don't have enough work to take up my whole night, so I still end up with time left over with nothing to do.

Ok, time to go back to my apartment since I've been in here for like an hour and a half now.

...so apparently it's been over a week since I last posted. Time passes really quickly when you're marathoning TV shows, I must say. Anyways, since my last post, I had my birthday and got 4 DVDs from my parents: Buffy Season 6, Angel Season 4, Chuck Season 2, and Dexter Season 3. So last Friday I started marathoning Chuck. Oh man, I love that show so much. ( Random Chuck Series Thoughts )

On Saturday I saw The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus with some friends. It was... not great. Not really good, even. I'd recommend it only if you're a huge fan of Heath Ledger and absolutely have to see his last film. Otherwise, it's not worth it. The acting is good, but that's about it. I'll probably post a longer review soon, along with reviews for the other movies I've seen this month. For the first 2 weeks of the month, I only saw like 2 movies, but all of a sudden I'm at 9 movies this month. I guess I've been watching a lot of movies the past few days.

Today I'm going to see A Single Man with my mom. It's my last day here; tomorrow I'm flying back to St. Paul, and classes begin on Monday. I can't believe I have class on Monday. I don't feel like I'm going back tomorrow. ugh, I still have to start packing. I was kind of dreading going back to school most of winter break because last semester was so busy and stressful and obviously being at home and being able to do what I want without having other obligations is much preferable. But I realized that if I act so negative towards it, I'm going to be miserable for at least a week before I get back into the hang of things, and that's not fun. So I'm trying to be more positive about it. I mean, for one thing, I'm way more excited about my classes this semester. The semester shouldn't be quite as stressful as the last two, and I have no 8 AM classes this time, thank god. I also don't have Wind Ensemble, which will definitely help me feel less stressed since I'll have more time to do schoolwork. I'm going to try to be on top of things this semester and go to the library for at least an hour or so a day so I will actually have time to read and watch TV and movies on the weekends or even on weeknights. I also shouldn't have as many homework assignments theoretically (definitely nothing as bad as the Discrete Math homework assignments that took over 5 hours each), so that should hopefully free up some time. And I'm taking a class with my favorite psych professor and one with my favorite German professor. I don't know, I think it should be fine. So I'll be positive and hope for the best for this semester.

Most of my friends have gone back to school now (I don't go back for another 2 weeks), so I've been watching a lot of TV. I started with Sons of Anarchy and al;ksfj omg I love it. ( Sons of Anarchy )

After I finished Sons of Anarchy, I immediately dove into Criminal Minds. I wasn't expecting to get into it very much, and after the first few episodes I thought I would be watching primarily for Reid, but somewhere during the first season I got seriously hooked. Right now I'm in the 3rd season. I'm hoping to be done with the series by Sunday night, but I don't know if I'll be able to. Speaking of Sunday night, kal;dfjs CHUCK SEASON 3 PREMIERE IS SUNDAY NIGHT. I'm so excited. It's been way too long since last season.

My 21st birthday is this coming Thursday. I keep forgetting. I don't drink and have no interest in starting, so I'm not excited about it for that. I mean, I'm not like... dreading it, I'm just kind of apathetic about it.

( Gossip Girl )

Ugh I really want to watch last night's episode of Being Erica. But I have so much crap to do today that I told myself I wouldn't watch it until I finished everything. I don't know when exactly I became more excited for Being Erica than for any other show, but... yeah, I'm really loving it. This is what happens when you introduce a ship in a show I can get behind. And I just love how they've been changing up the episodes this season. Plus, Greek is off until February, I've been bitter towards HIMYM since Barney/Robin broke up, I still am really liking TBBT but Leonard/Penny prevents me from being as eager to watch it as last year, and Chuck won't be on until January. And those were all the shows I was obsessive over last semester, so... Being Erica is my new show to obsess over. For like, what, 2 episodes, and then the season's over? Same for Dexter, which is my other favorite show right now. Boo.

The head of the math department sent out an e-mail for people who are interested in being a preceptor (like a T.A.) for Multivariable Calc next semester with my favorite math professor (who was my professor for Multivariable last fall), so I e-mailed her to say I was interested. Unfortunately they give priority to people on financial aid, and I'm not on financial aid, so I probably won't get it, but I figured I'd e-mail her just in case. I'd totally do it for free/no credit/etc.; I just think it would be fun. And will probably make my life way busier than it needs to be next semester, but whatever. As I said, I probably won't get it.

I'm feeling so overwhelmed right now. I just keep remembering stuff I have to do and it just feels like way too much. Unfortunately a lot of stuff I need to do I can't start until Thursday or this weekend, so I feel kind of stuck. On the one hand, I'm so happy that this week has been flying by and there are only 10 days of classes left and 17 total days until I leave for winter break, but on the other hand, I know I have so much stuff left to do and so little time to do it all in. So I'm kind of a mess right now. I'm hoping to get loads done this weekend (I will pretty much live in the library on Saturday and Sunday, I think) so next week isn't quite so overwhelming.

I was feeling pretty good Wednesday, Thursday, and this morning, and then I went to Directed Research and realized how much crap I have to do the next few weeks. So now I'm ridiculously stressed. I mean, I have a draft of my discussion due the Friday we get back from Thanksgiving, but I'm not going to close my survey until next week, which basically only gives me a few days to analyze my results. And then the week after that, I have to present the project to the class, and a few days later the final paper is due. This is crazy. It feels like the end of the semester is far away, but it really isn't. I have 3 days of school next week, Thanksgiving break, then 2 full weeks of school, 2 days, and then finals start. I'm coming home for winter break the afternoon of Dec. 19th, which... really isn't too far away. Less than a month! And after Thanksgiving break, it's only 3 weeks. Oh man I'm so stressed out. And I still need more participants! ugh.

At this point, I pretty much just need to put no work at all into Discrete Math. Even with taking it pass/fail, I've been putting effort into it (not as much as if I were getting a grade, but still more than I need to), but I got an A on the last project (I HAVE NO IDEA HOW. I mean, I understood it better than the first project, which I got a B+ on, but based on the criteria he handed out for A, B, and C projects, I definitely didn't think the project was anywhere close to that) and I have an A in the class, and with everything coming up, something needs to go. So it will be this class. Besides, I'm going to feel so ridiculous if I get an A in the class when I'm taking it pass/fail.

I've been feeling pretty crappy about this cognitive psych group project I have to do, but I was talking to one of my roommates about it who's in the class but not in my group, and she made me feel so much better about it. My roommates are awesome. Two of them are studying abroad next semester, and I'm actually going to miss them a lot, which is kind of weird since I've only known them since September. But they are very awesome people.

In TV news, CHUCK IS COMING BACK JAN. 10 OMG. It's like an early present for my birthday (which is the 14th)! And that's so much sooner than in March after the Olympics, which was what was first reported. omg I'm so excited! Jan. 10 isn't even that far away!

Anyways, I'm now going to shower, watch some TV (I'm so behind! But I probably only have time for 1-2 episodes), eat a fast dinner, do a little homework, perform in the Wind Ensemble concert, and then come back and start doing more schoolwork (yes, on a Friday night. ugh.). I have so much to do this weekend. Moreso for the week after Thanksgiving than next week, but I really, really don't want to have to do any work over Thanksgiving break (even though I probably will end up having to). I think I need to like post a picture of the grad school I want to get into on my wall for motivation, because it's going to be really hard getting through this weekend (and, really, the rest of the semester).

My parents and I finally got to the Wesley episodes of season 3 of Buffy! We had left off at The Zeppo and then my mom was in Minnesota the weekend after that and then we were finishing up Dexter the weekend after that, but now we're finally back to Buffy. I mean, I don't love Wesley on Buffy at all (although he's pretty amusing, especially when Giles is sniping at him), but he's my absolute favorite character on Angel, so it's exciting to see him. I think he might have the most drastic development of any character on either series. And there's Faith! I mean, she was in the earlier episodes of the season as well, but still. I've rediscovered my Faith love this summer, and this is basically the start of it all going downhill for her.

I wrote up a bunch of thoughts while watching Angel a few weeks ago, but then I was kind of overwhelmed by the end of season 5 (even though I was spoiled and knew what was going to happen; in fact, I had seen quite a few of the episodes from the end of the season) so I wanted to distance myself from the show for a little. And now I've moved on to other obsessions (namely True Blood), so I forgot about it. But here are the random thoughts I had while watching the show: ( Angel Series Thoughts )

Anyways, I randomly feel like rewatching both seasons of The Big Bang Theory and then picspamming the show. I don't know why. Well, I'm feeling like randomly picspamming everything since I haven't done a picspam in ages and I'm leaving to go back to school on the 23rd and won't have much time during the semester to picspam anything. But there's no real reason for me to want to rewatch TBBT in particular. I haven't had a great urge to rewatch Chuck even though I was planning a rewatch for the second last semester ended and I got home. I don't know. I'm feeling kind of out of sorts having so little time left at home. I feel like I need to get all this different stuff in that I know I won't have time for once I leave.

At some point in the next week, I really need to start going through all my stuff and figuring out what I want to take with me. And I need to search for socks, because I've somehow managed to lose track of like half my socks since I've been home. And I feel like I need to review German ridiculous amounts. I feel like I've forgotten 90% of what I learned of German in the past year. I was trying to remember just the basic pronouns and it took me way longer than it should have. I'm not really sure that I'm going to be able to fit all the stuff I need to do in with all the stuff I'm having random urges to do.