Friday, January 30, 2009

Quizzes, Tests and Panic attacks, oh my..

Yesterday I had my first quiz in about thirteen years. Got myself a bit worked up about it, of course, but I'm sure I did fine - it was for geology lecture. She wasn't joking when she said it would be ten questions and very easy (questions like "why didn't cavemen bump into dinosaurs?" which was a representation of geologic time - answer of course being because there was about sixty million years between them on the fossil record). Moving right along then... later in the evening as I was chatting with a friend of mine through yahoo I realized that wait a second, the quiz was nothing.. I have TWO TESTS on Tuesday! Had myself a brief panic attack as I realized how much studying I'll need to do on top of my normal homework. *nods solemnly* I -must- get a 95% or better on the psych test and because I loathe math and only want to do it once I really need to pass that well. So it's going to be an interesting weekend - I'm expecting mild nightmares at some point, you know the type, the ones where the teachers give you a test on something that has nothing to do with the class, like the anatomy of a hedgehog or something, and there are sharks circling you, giggling, as you try to write your answers with a toothbrush... yeah, one of those. *nods*

Monday, January 26, 2009

Mathness...

Right, so, I'm getting this math class over with... and as far as I know I only have to take one other afterwards (thank GOD).

This... is a good thing.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I really dislike math - actually if my brain thought in those highly logical purely numerical terms instead of others I would quite like it, but it doesn't - and I have a Strong preference for other things anyway.

Add to that, that I see no reasonable reason for why I HAVE to (re)learn how to do a quadratic equation. I mean, honestly, when am I ever likely to look at a patient and say: "so you're saying... 2x + 3 = 52, which of course means x must equal 25... but x really equals 9?"

... I want to provide -therapy-, not teach math (to idiots)! *grumbles, threateningly shakes fist at The Man*


(Note: this probably wouldn't have frustrated me nearly as much if 1) I didn't have a nazi for an instructor and 2) I weren't sick.. when I'm sick I just can't focus on little details like negative signs and whatnot, so when I look over the answers and find out half my work was wrong it can be a bit irksome. *nods*)

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Maternal Wisdom...


As one good friend recently told me when I shared this with her, my Mother is a genius! And I must admit, indeed she is gloriously smart. In fact, the bit of wisdom she shared with me recently, which I have been dutifully and happily sharing with my friends, is so amazingly astute, so tremendously true, that I NEEDED to post it to my LJ publicly for all to share in it's wonderful wisdom!


(*beams* You should be proud Mom!)


God finished creating man and woman and they were equally intelligent, reasonable, sensible creatures and it was good.

In woman he had made the vagina and gifted it with multiple orgasms and this was good. In man he had meant to create the penis, but as he was looking over his work he realized that in his joy of creating such splendid things he had forgotten to. Sadly he had already used all of his material, there was none at all left at hand.

After a few moments reflection he decided that rather than waiting and possibly forgetting (he was a very, very busy creator after all), he would simply shift some of the material he had already used around so that man would have his glorious penis. After another moments contemplation, wherein he eliminated various places for this possible shifting (kidneys? lungs? no, they'll need two of those....) he finally decided he knew where to find the extra material.

He reached into mans brain and tugged away the portions dedicated to reason, logic and common sense, from these he blessed man with a penis... Which perfectly explains why: the bigger the penis, the less logic, reason and common sense a man has, and!, why when men get an erection whatever minor abilities they had to use the remnants of common sense, reason and logic they posses seems to fly right out the window!

(My Mom Rocks! *smirks*)

~~~~~~~~~

Note: Original humour written by my mother and myself, originally posted in my livejournal on July 7th, 2008.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Things I've learned...

After my first full 'week' of being a college student (again) I've decided now might be a fantastic time to share some of the wonderful things I've learned. In no particular order.

1) Being sick sucks seriously nasty, sweaty donkey balls. I already knew this but it bears repeating.

2) Coughing so hard that your back hurts and people around you cringe sucks even more.

3) Practically being able to hear those people thinking "why did she bother coming if she's so sick? I better not catch anything..." is really, Really irritating.

4) I hope they all caught something.

5) I'm way meaner than I thought.

6) Wearing a shirt that says "Which one of my personalities do you find offensive?" to a psychology class makes the teacher do a double take and then giggle.

7) Even when I have almost no voice, my "group" in any given class will elect me as "spokesperson" if we have to talk to the room at large.

8) Even though I can't hear myself apparently I can still manage to project my sore throat squeaky voice enough for a room of sixty some-odd people to understand me and chuckle at my tongue-in-cheek almost-dry humour.

9) My philosophy professor is either going to adore me or reeeeeeeeeeally loathe me within the next four weeks when I turn in the "world view" paper which isn't technically due until the end of the semester...

10) ... when I ask a teacher if there's a maximum page number for an assignment that has a minimum of four... they should worry. A lot.

11) By the end of next week my philosophy classmates are going to be convinced that I'm psychotic.. because they suffer from groupthink. Poor silly sheeple.

12) A brisk twelve minute walk in order to get to my next class on time when I'm sick ... sucks severely sweaty, nasty donkey balls.

13) It sucks even more when it starts drizzling.

14) And I don't have an umbrella.

15) Nazi-esque math teachers have a purpose in life too.

16) I'm pretty sure their purpose is to drive me more insane than I already am.

17) Fractions are evil.

18) So are variables.

19) When I'm sick, the weather also becomes miserable - grey cloudy sky, drizzly, chilly, the works - doesn't matter what state I'm in either, it may have been eighty degrees three days ago, but once I'm sick, BOOM, it's fifty.

20) It only drizzles while I'm taking my brisk twelve minute walks towards classes on opposite sides of the campus. When I'm sick. And don't have an umbrella.

21) Sometimes the Universe is nice to me, randomly. (Don't ask why, it's scary.)

22) Even when I'm sick, I flirt.

23) New Yorkers really don't change, they just transplant, some more successfully than others.

24) All NYers are, apparently, Italians - as evidenced by the various NYers we run into outside of NY at any given time in any given place all being Italians.

25) That makes me feel more human somehow, in a good "hey I'm smiling and I'm not trying to kill anyone!" kind of way.

26) A particularly strong compulsion of mine (remember, I have OCD), is to sit really close to the little tank that has the evil creepy crawly eight legged horrors... I can only assume this is so that I can keep an eye on them in case they try to escape or something.

27) Getting to know the guy who works in the cafe, the evening maintenance peoples and the guys wearing the "campus safety" shirts ... means special priveleges after hours, like staying in the comp lab building after the building is supposed to be locked.

28) Having a pathetic reason for asking (like the fact that it's only 830 and my ride won't be here until at least 1030 and I'm audibly [and visibly!] sick) just kind of ices the cake and makes them feel good about letting me stay inside.

29) It also makes prompts them into offering to help me if I "need anything at all" ...

30) ... some of them should probably be worrying now. If they aren't, they don't know me yet.

31) After a full day of classes there's very little brain power left with which to do anything other than: read things that have nothing to do with classes (you know, FUN books like HP!), go through email, or put your head down on your arms and hope that the pain stops sometime soon... even though there's enough homework to do that it will take four days to complete it.

32) When I say "in no particular order" apparently it implies that things will at least still be mostly chronological.

33) Another strong compulsion of mine has to do with multiples of three... everything HAS to be in multiples of three if I have my way. Which I did. Yay me!


... and there you have it. I'm sure I learned more than that, but that's not bad for two days of classes really. : )

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Post First-day Reflections...

Here's what you need to know before we start: In order to make yesterday easier on myself, the night before I made sure my bathroom was ready for the morning (read: towels in place, timer set - I have OCD, yes I really do time my showers - etc), I also made sure my clothing was set out, all my papers and things were in a backpack that really, really, really needs to retire permanently, my water bottle was in the freezer and I left a little note on the fridge in hopes of remembering to take it out, and I set everything I would need to feed the kitties and me on the counter. It turns out this was all excellent forethought on my part.

The morning went something like this:

- My alarm, which is normally a sweet, soft, gentle little sound that wakes me just fine instead goes off like some evil alien claxon informing Earth of impending doom.
- My cats seriously try to kill me as I stumble out of bed, turn off the evil alarm and stumble into my bathroom without ever opening my eyes.
- I manage to shower without ever opening my eyes (so it's definitely good my little timer was set the night before or I might have been very confused if it had beeped after only three minutes instead of fifteen *nodsnods*).
- My cats try seriously to kill me again as I emerge from the bathroom smelling all sweet and such, because my eyes still aren't open as I trip onto the bed, roll over and start pulling on my clothing... shirts do not make good pants, by the way, in case any of you were curious.
- I reluctantly open my eyes in order to dress properly, finally manage that, then stumble to the kitchen to feed the kitties... and I actually remember to take my water bottle out of the freezer. Yayness!!!
- My brother emerges from his room, snarling at me (not even growling as he usually does, actually =snarling=... apparently he got about three hours of sleep, which would almost make me wonder what he was doing when he went to bed four hours before me except that frankly I'm a little afraid to let myself wonder).
- I manage to remember to put liquid water into my water bottle, so that the giant ice cube along the side of it will keep it cool. I even remember to eat before we leave. W00t!
- Despite evidence to the contrary we manage to get me to school on time - I swear my brother is secretly a wizard and can do things that would make the Knight Bus sweat with worry...
- My life becomes stranger than it already was.

And now for the "fun" part! My actual school day:

- Psych 101 rocks. I actually found the class, first of all, with no trouble.. w00t!!! The teacher is, apparently, channeling my Aunt Dee, which both worries and amuses me. I'll have to ask Mom if Aunt Dee has been acting differently lately, cuz it's just too weird... but honestly it was a perfect first class for a semi-stressed, semi-nervous returning student. :)
- Philo 101 also rocks, but in a totally different way that's going to make my days at MCC very .. well, stranger than normal. There is no structure to the class at all, there are reading assignments so that we can have discussions in class but there's only one writing assignment and he frankly is more interested in the discussions we have than things like tests and whatnot. Severe Yayness!
- And then we have math... evil, evil, evil math... (nyxie, you're in trouble now, there's nearly a one hundred percent chance that I'll take up your offer for help). The instructor makes Adrian Monks ocd look tame. Seriously I had to bite my tongue not to ask her if she was either on crack or had a really odd sense of humour ... I figured pissing her off on the first day might not be beneficial to me. *nods wisely*
- Next came English... wherein I learned that for the first time ever I may have some slight difficulty with an English class. Mostly because the room we're in is like a boiler room, it's the instructors last class of the day and she's very soft spoken and more tangential than I am. (Yes, apparently that is possible.) The urge to doze off... is substantial.
- Break! Blissful, wonderful, much needed break... oh glorious break! The chance to dip into a bathroom and not stand in line for an hour... the chance to eat food, glorius, wonderful food... the ability to walk all the way across campus from the building where my of my classes are to the building where my last two classes are without having to do that speed walking funky looking ass wiggling thing that barely gets you there on time and leaves ya breathless... Aaaah love, thy name is Break! *purrrrs*
- Thankfully my last two classes, Geo lab and lecture, are in the same room. At the moment I technically have two different professors, however it seems my lecture instructor may be forced to take a medical leave of absence. The first lecture was cancelled because she had to go to the hospital (not good), but my lab teacher, who reminds me seriously of all the good things about Home (read: he's a NYer, he's laid back, he's not interested in making things stressful and difficult, etc), will be taking over if lecture lady can't return.. and he rocks lots, so it's not a bad thing for me personally though I hope the lecture lady's health improves, of course, cuz I'm just nice like that and all.

The only sucky thing about my day is that by the time it's done I'm so overloaded with information that it becomes increasingly difficult to try to concentrate on reading or homework after classes end, so although I'm stuck at the campus for several hours after class, I have a limited period of time in which to try to accomplish anything without reaching Zombie Mind. *nodsnods* And that must be avoided, I don't have the time available to have to reread the same assignment six times before I "get it".

All in all, this is going to be a very interesting semester.. next sem I need to make sure my schedule and my brothers matches better and, if I'm smart, only take twelve credits. Speak of the devil, lil brother just called... apparently I NEED to get ready to go out because he's going to pick me up since he has to go past the main campus before he heads to work. So I guess I'll stop babbling - *chuckles* too late right? - and grab all my books and such in order to get my studying done while I'm sitting around up by his work. Yay. *chuckles* Off I go! ;)

Monday, January 19, 2009

School

After eleven years.. I'm going back to school.

Tomorrow is my first day.

I'm both excited and very nervous.. a lot of the students in my classes are going to be over a decade my junior so I feel a bit weird too. *chuckles* But... it's the right time and apparently it's the right place.

All the planets have aligned properly or something, unlike my brother (who's also going back to school, though he's only been out for six years) I had no issues with setting my classes or my financial aid or anything.

I'm definitely not making it any easier on myself though.. I only have classes on Tuesday and Thursday, at nine a.m. I have intro psych, at ten-thirty it's intro philosophy (I may end up killing people in that one - only time will tell). At noon I have intro algebra - this one almost frightens me, I haven't taken a math class in about fourteen or fifteen years.. I don't remember shit about X and Z and reasons. *chuckles* But that's why lil brother (the mathematical genius) has to help me out, which works well for him, since I agreed to take first year comp at one-thirty even though I placed higher on their little exam just in order to help him get through a class that would otherwise probably make him kill people. :D I get a lovely break from about two forty-five until four twenty, then I have intro geology lab and lecture back to back, so that class doesn't end until seven p.m.

A long day made longer by the fact that lil brother works closing shift on Tues and Thurs so since he won't leave the store until about ten-fifteen, I get to sit there until he shows up at around eleven p.m. Yay me? Oh well, at least I'll get my homework done. *grins*

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Corsets...

So I decided to do a little corset shopping this afternoon. I haven't gotten a new on in aaaaages you see, and since my younger brother Mephistopheles and I are actually attending the next fetish event as vendors (yes, you did read that correctly), I figure it'd be nice to have something new and different to wear. One of the many corsets I looked at is the "bank heist" corset at Fredericks, I get a kick out of their stuff, it's so cute. I shared that with several friends in IM ... every one of them laughed. *wonders why a corset specifically for bank heists is funny* ... I shall have to ponder this muchly. That is all. ;)

~loves~

Sheepness...

So since many of my friends are now on blogspot anyway ... and livejournal does seem to be facing "issues" ... I've decided it's time to set up my own crazy lil blogspot. I'm sure I'll start copying things over here over the next few weeks (months/years/eternities? .. It'll happen eventually, honest!). But of course, what that leads up to is:

Who wants to be my first follower? *grins*

~loves~