brokenrecord

( 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.

( Glee 1.06 )

I got my Discrete Math test back today, and I got an 85! I did end up getting partial credit for the two questions I didn't finish. And I actually got 4 points off for being an idiot and not reading that I needed to provide 2 solutions to one of the problems rather than 1, which I would've been able to do easily. And we can earn half the points back by correcting our answers, so I should be able to get up to a 92. And I got full credit on the first homework. So... I'm actually doing well in this class? Weird. I might not have needed to take the class pass/fail after all. But I'm still glad I did. This way I am so much more stress-free through the rest of the semester. And at least now I don't have to worry about doing well enough to pass because I should easily be able to pass the class. I'm going to end up doing pretty poorly on the first project, anyways, so I can probably do with doing better on the test and homework assignments.

I'm so happy right now. This is the first time I've really had a chance to breathe in weeks. My IRB form is done (and has been looked over by my adviser several times, so it should be pretty good) and so is my method section draft that's due tomorrow. The only major thing I have next week is my German test, and that's not until Friday, and I did really well on the first one. My parents are coming this afternoon and for several days I'll be able to go out to eat rather than having to figure out what I'm going to make myself and realize I don't have something I need for whatever I was planning on eating. The only homework I have for tomorrow is German homework (and we don't have to turn it in, so I don't really need to do it, but I will so I don't fall behind) and I have almost all afternoon to do it.

The only thing really not making me happy right now is HOLY CRAP WHAT IS THIS WEATHER? Yesterday morning, at 9:30 AM (which is actually pretty late; it's not like the sun wasn't up), my computer said it was 39 degrees outside. WHAT THE HELL. And on Saturday right now it's supposed to snow! WE'RE NOT EVEN HALFWAY THROUGH OCTOBER, WHAT IS THIS? I know I said I wanted it to get cooler a few weeks ago, but I take it back! I was happy the first day or so it dropped below 60, but now I want 70 and 80 degree weather back! It definitely didn't get this cold this soon the past 2 years (I remember during parents' weekend freshman year, it was actually like a heatwave and was around 80 degrees). It's making me really afraid for the winter. The leaves haven't even changed colors yet! Stupid Minnesota.

Today started... weird? I don't know. While I was sleeping, I shifted my leg just slightly or bent it or something, I don't really know what I did but it wasn't much, but anyways, that somehow sent a shooting pain through the back of my knee which woke me up at around 5 AM. I have absolutely no idea what happened, but it hurt like hell. When I actually got up, it felt slightly sore, but it wasn't too bad. I limped around a little for like an hour, but now it's fine. It was bizarre. And I've also felt kind of nauseous since yesterday morning, which is excellent. I really don't need to be feel nauseous when I'm flying home tomorrow because I already get sick enough on airplanes as it is. =/

The good, however, is that I'm going home tomorrow! Of course it's absolutely freezing here (back down to below 0 temperatures at certain points), and it'll be up to 51 once I've left. It might actually be warmer here than in Mammoth! Well, ok, maybe not. I don't really know how warm it's supposed to be in Mammoth. But I wish I could have enjoyed the warm weather this week and the crappy weather could have waited a week.

I randomly bought all three seasons of How I Met Your Mother on DVD this morning. I've had this urge since like November, and I've been in a super HIMYM mood recently. I started watching a bunch of random clips from the show and then I realized that I just really wanted to rewatch everything. And I had gift certificates to Amazon and buying all three at once in like a package saved loads of money (only $24ish per set rather than the list price of like $40!), so yeah. This is probably bad timing because I'll just want to watch them all when they arrive, but whatever. At least it's the kind of show that I can have on in the background while I do homework/study/whatever.

I've also maybe decided to start watching Bones for various reasons. Partially because I randomly feel like watching a detective/murder mystery-type show. I don't know, I'm in a weird mood, and I'm getting all these random urges (like buying all 3 seasons of HIMYM)! I watched the first 5-8ish episodes when it first aired. I'm just going to watch episodes 13-18 now because those are up on Hulu and it's convenient to watch them there, and then at some point in the future (provided I like those episodes), I'll catch up on the rest. Either when I have time on weekends or I'll wait until summer. But yeah, I think it'll be easier for me to get into it this way than when I was first watching from week-to-week (assuming it gets better after the first few episodes that I watched). I mean, I didn't like HIMYM after the first like 9 episodes when it first aired, and now I adore it.

Ok, so off to watch a few random episodes of Bones.

I have my Research in Psych exam in about an hour and I'm so tired of studying. It's not that I know everything perfectly, but I feel like I have a decent grasp of the material, and I don't feel like I can absorb any more information at this point. So I'm pretty much just wasting time online half-studying so I don't feel totally guilty for doing nothing.

Also, it's practically blizzarding outside. I had no idea it was snowing but then I accidentally hit F12 on my Mac which brings up the dashboard which has the weather forecast and it said it was snowing and I was like "Huh, ok" and I opened my curtains to see and it was just like totally white. I was not expecting it at all. I thought it'd just be light or regular snowfall, but it's ridiculous. And I get to walk all the way across campus in this to take an exam! What fun. Maybe it will have let up in an hour?

This week went by much faster than I expected. And now Spring Break is just two weeks from tomorrow! Ah, I'm so excited. Actually, I'm ok with it being the week before Spring Break, too. I have absolutely nothing major that week. It's pretty awesome. Unfortunately next week I have a German test, the pushed-back stats test, a data set for stats, and the first draft of our research proposal for RIP. Ugh, I need to talk to him about that because I'm not even sure about my topic and I want to do most of it over the weekend so I won't be quite so busy during the week, but he doesn't have office hours tomorrow. I'm hoping he'll actually be on campus tomorrow. I'll have to ask today after class.

Ok, back to semi-studying.

My bad mood from Tuesday or Wednesday or whatever continued for a few days and I was going to make a post about things I was feeling bitchy about, but today was actually really great and it kind of bodes well for the rest of the semester, so now I'm going to make a post about things I'm feeling bitchy about and things that are making me happy:

( Things I'm Feeling Bitchy About )

( Things Making Me Happy )

I randomly feel like watching old Supernatural episodes. Mostly season 2, which is the only season I have on DVD and I haven't even watched it yet (I got it for Christmas). I also feel like watching season 1, though. And season 3, kind of. Ok, so I guess I just want to marathon it all! We'll see, though. I'm going to spend this afternoon cleaning my room (it is so ridiculously messy. It was a mess when I left and it's just gotten worse since I've been back) and then I don't know what.

Two finals down! The German final went well. I screwed up more on the listening than I usually do (I'm kind of really good at German listening which is weird because I was always crap at French listening. Although that might have been because we only ever did listening on the tests and never had any practice), but the rest was very easy. The Research in Psych conceptual final didn't go quite as well. Like, it wasn't terrible, but I would have liked to do better. Really, I feel like I did well on basically every section except one, but that section I feel like I got maybe half right on, so that's kind of bringing my opinion down of the whole test, even though if I do get half right on that section, I'll have a 93 on the test. So maybe I shouldn't complain.

I also turned in my RIP SPSS final, so that's done with. Um, provided I pass. (It doesn't actually count towards my grade, but if I don't get an 80 or higher, I have to redo it, which... no. Do not want.) I'm almost done with the take-home computational final, although I need to look one of the questions over more, because I'm not 100% sure of the method I used and the answer turned out kind of weird.

I have my German oral final today in an hour and a half. I'm kind of nervous about it, but there's nothing much I can do to prepare. The problem is that I have trouble enough speaking aloud in English, let alone in German, (I tend to stutter and pause and say the wrong word in English when I'm nervous) and that it's being conducted by Markus, the lab instructor, whom I already don't understand 95% of the time anyways because he talks really fast and uses words we haven't learned yet. But whatever, like I said, I can't really do anything to prepare for it at this point. Hopefully I'll get through it and it'll go better than I expect.

It snowed pretty steadily all day yesterday. I've been very bitter at the weather because my attitude is that if it's going to be cold, it better snow, and also I better be able to actually see it snow. But every time it's snowed, either it hasn't stuck or it's snowed overnight and I've missed it entirely, which is very sad. But yeah, it was awesome yesterday (of course now the ground is really slushy and the bottom of my pants and, subsequently, my socks, got all wet). I'm happy that I'm not sick of snow, even if I do prefer California winters.

I had to wake up at 7 because my final was at 8 this morning, and oh god, how did I wake up at 6:15 four days a week (and 7:15 on Thursdays) in high school? It's just cruel. And what the hell possessed me to take a class TR at 8 next semester? I am going to die. Well, I will if I can't switch my MWF class from the 9:40 one to the 2:20 or whatever one I want to take. That would help a lot.

Anyways, after the German oral final, I have to go over my computational RIP final (as I already mentioned), and then start preparing for my multivariable calc final. The calc final isn't until Wednesday at 10:30, though, so there's a good chance I'll blow off studying for it until tomorrow. Whatever, I have a 95 in the class, and it only counts for 1/4 of our grade if it'll bring our grade down (it counts for 1/2 if it'll bring our grade up) and, I mean, I've understood basically everything we've done in the class so far. I just have to review the stuff we did earlier in the semester that I've forgotten. But it should be fine. I'm not too worried about it. I'll probably end up packing and preparing to leave instead.

Is it weird that the thing I probably hate Palin for most right now is that she threatened to fire a librarian because the librarian wouldn't agree to ban books that Palin said some of her supporters felt there were "innappropriate words" or something in? But, I mean, I can see where people disagree about abortion (even if I don't agree with it) and other issues, but... who supports banning books in this day and age? That's just flat-out wrong. I wish that would get more attention in the media.

It kind of scares me that it felt really cold today since the temperatures went down to the low to mid 60s for most of the day. That should not be cold. In April that would have been like boiling. I don't want to have to get acclimated to the weather again.

I had my first German lab yesterday, and I think it might be my favorite class this semester. I mean, I already like German. But then there's also the fact that the lab is only me and this one other girl who's a first year who I had already talked to a bit last week and she's very nice, so that's nice. But the main (100% shallow) reason is that the guy who runs the lab is this 20-something year old (I think he's in grad school) who was born in Germany and has a slight German and slight British accent and he's very tall and very attractive and... yeah. I'm incredibly shallow, ok? And I kind of have a thing for accents. But whatever, it's fun anyways. Especially since there are no tests or anything in the lab, and we do have homework for it, but it's not graded and basically we just talk and answer questions and he helps with pronunciation and everything. It helps to make up for the fact that I wanted to have the lab on Monday and I got forced into taking the Tuesday afternoon lab.

I watched the first half of 90210 last night and thought it was pretty awful. I'm going to watch the second half later, I just stopped because I wanted to watch Greek and I realized that I could wait to find out if Ethan hated Annie forever for telling her brother that he was cheating on his girlfriend. Or whatever. At this point I don't think I'll keep watching once the other shows start coming back (my Tuesdays are actually the second-most packed night of TV of the week, I think, which is surprising. I would've thought it would be Thursdays. Although I probably will drop 1-2 other shows from Tuesdays in addition to this, so that might help), but we'll see. I also wasn't going to keep watching Gossip Girl and almost didn't finish the first episode, but now I'm totally in love with it.

I got the posters I ordered today so I'm going to put them up and maybe rearrange my furniture and finish organizing things and once that's all done I'll post some pictures of my room.

lksdjflkj I am in SUCH a bad mood.

So, you know last week how I was excited how I got a good draw number and it meant that I wouldn't have to be in Dupre, which have the worst singles and are smaller than prison cells and the school actually pays a fine each year because they're so small but it's cheaper to pay the fine than renovate the building? GUESS WHERE MY ROOM NEXT YEAR IS GOING TO BE?

( Excessively long ranting about my room and school in general. )

Also, ok, WHAT THE HELL, WEATHER? It started raining, which was fine (kind of nice, actually), but then it started snowing, and then raining, and it's been like... sleeting? Is I guess what they call it? since like 5:30. It is awful. The wind is ridiculous and my umbrella kept flipping inside out wherever I'd go, and the wind kept changing direction, so I'd have to change my umbrella to be against the wind so it wouldn't do that. And tonight we're supposed to get 6 inches of snow. WHAT THE HELL. IT'S SPRING. IT'S APRIL.

I was going to get work done tonight and not watch The Office or 30 Rock, but I just... cannot get anything done in this frame of mind tonight. So I'm going to shower and then watch 30 Rock and The Office and then go to sleep. I am going to regret this tomorrow and this weekend when I have more work to get done, but whatever. There's no way I'm getting anything done now.

Today has been made of EPIC FAIL.

I'm ditching my psych group tonight and Thursday, and it makes me sad. I mean, we're allowed to miss one, and the group is over before the really hectic stuff I have at the end of April, and I have two tests and a mini-paper due this week so it makes sense to miss it (plus I'm least interested in the movie we're seeing this week), so it makes sense to miss it. But it's my favorite school-related activity of the week, so it sort of sucks to miss it. But I'd also not rather write the mini-paper we have to write after each movie (it's like 1-2 pages only, it doesn't take very long to do and it's not graded very harshly so it's not a big deal, but still) and I'd really like to have the three hours I spend in the group tonight, so. That's how it goes.

I like how I totally planned to take pictures tomorrow because of it being warm enough to stay outside for extended amounts of time, and now they're predicting it's going to rain. This is totally my luck. Today is SO WARM (high of 46! I don't need to wear mittens or my big jacket! Just a long-sleeve t-shirt and a sweatshirt!) and it would make sense to do it today, but I have class until 3:30 and I'm planning on meeting with the professor from that class afterwards and then it'll start getting darker and colder and I just don't have the time today. Stupid weather.

I am not going to be able to watch this week's Skins or Torchwood till Friday night at earliest, probably. This makes me very sad. This week needs to be over soon. Especially Thursday. Thursday is going to suck. I have the stupid essay-test for Film Analysis (the only good part is that after this test, there will be only one essay-test left) and then I'm going to have to spend the rest of the afternoon studying for my abnormal psych test. I can't wait until Friday.