Is that english...or some secret code?

Professors should try their best to have legible handwriting, especially in any sort of of physics/math-ish class. I ran into a friend of mine, Liz, this afternoon and she was bemoaning the handwriting of one of her engineering professors. We had an amusing conversation.

Liz: "When he write 1/2 sigma pi* It looks like 1 over a drawing of something."

Me: "Like 1 over puppy-dog?"

Liz: "I wonder what the value of 'puppy' is?"

Me: "That would depend on whether it is a pure-bread or a mutt."

I Am Not Your Maid

Dearly loved roommate,

Please for the love of all that is holy scrape extra food off your plate into the trash and rinse off your plate when you're done. Guess what this does? Keeps me from getting in a foul mood spending 20 minutes trying to scrub grease/sugar/unknown food particles off of everything you've thrown in the sink. Also, if you're going to cook and dump greese down the sink, follow it up with plenty of hot water. It keeps the sink from clogging. 

I am not your maid, nor your mother and I don't appreciate the LOOKS when you randomly had friends over and the kitchen is gross because I "Haven't cleaned in a long time." Try again. It was last night, and it was perfectly clean. If anything, your sloppy habbits of leaving sticky knives and splattered sauces/juices/random liquids on the counters and not taking out the recycling for WEEKS (coughwinknudge). 

If you're embarassed about the state of the apartment, you can clean it up. Unlike you, I am not home all day with nothing to do. In fact, I'm up at campus attending classes, labs, and working two jobs. 

I love you to death my dear, but some things are just not cool.

CLEAN UP AFTER YOURSELF!

Love, A Smith

PS: Beware, another cleaning rampage this weekend. This time you'd better not just sit back and watch.

Is it...is that...DOS?

Why is it that at a university known for its biology departments, especially ones that filter into the Veterinary School, the physics department gets the new computers and those of us in Biol get the old DOS computers?! I mean, seriously, trying to take a heart rate on a computer you need to type obscure commands to get it to work. At the very least most Physics majors are computer savvy enough to honestly know what to do. Of my group, I think I was the one who understood the program the best--which is sad seeing as my DOS experience in the past was playing Oregon trail and a math game involving math (Turbo Math?) and stealing computer paper to draw on.

This lab is going to be...interesting... 

TA's kick ass

Especially when they're quirky Bio TA's who know their stuff and can explain it very well.

And when you get quotes like: 

"Botonists are creepy. They just stare at plants all day. Plants don't do anything."

Also, I am once again reminded why I loath one of my professors, henceforth referred to as the Douchbag. Apparently those of us signing up for a 300 level biology course don't know what "pre" and "post" mean, thus why the Douchbag slowly and horribly explained it in the context of neural synapses (which anyone who's taken a HS level bio course understands better than him). He is also apparently forgetting that one of the pre-reqs for this class is a passing grade in Cell Phys, in which we spent weeks on the little details involved in all these reactions he's bumbling over. The Douchbag is also apparently psychic and hates me because he meantioned one of my least favorite topics in Physiology: Second Messanger Systems. I spent weeks on them last semester and, oh, here they are again. Just to rub some salt in that wound.

Only good thing I can think of involving the Douchbag: he's totally getting his ass fired at the end of this semester. :D Happy days.

and while I'm on the subject of Mammalian Physiology: I need to remember not to scrawl notes to my friend in it because she apparently can't keep from laughing aloud in the middle of a silent lecture hall. I think the only reason we didn't get yelled at was because of my "I'm-paying-close-attention-to-your-lecture-and-am-very-interested" face was plastered on. 

And a final note for my dear friends in Seattle: I'll be home President's Day/ Valentine's Day weekend! (Huzzah Zoology Club trips to Point Defiance!)

Don't snap at friends

Just a quick mini-rant. Its common curtosy to not get snappy at friends trying to be helpful when you're in a bad mood, and if you react before you think: appologize please.

I have a weekly quota of self-pity that I tolerate and today filled that up. 

So, don't just whine about shit happening, do something about it. 

If it's financial and you have a job: pick up more hours. If you're short money now and need more, you're always talking about how much your parents want to help you.

If you don't want to stick your horse in a stall but want to see him: you have the time to go out and exercize him/turn him out everyday.

My lesson for the day: F-ing get over yourself and get shit done. 

[sigh] Sorry if I sound rather bitchy right now, but I'm firmly in the school of "Don't whine, fix it" and several people have whined to me today and I've tried to help and got snapped at.  But, unlike them, I showed restraint and didn't snap back. Hell, I even appologized for "not understanding."

This is an example of why I have so few real friends and "hate" people. 

...Who sent these?

We (my roommate and I) had flowers delivered to us the other day, which confused both of us. There was no reason for us to get flowers and it sat on the counter for a while and then I found the card.

It turns out it it was for someone else. Woops. Too bad it has our address on it. Therefore, its ours.

Its very pretty and is sitting down on our coffee table in our clean living room (I attacked the mess like a rabid maid and scoured it all away). I'll be sad when they die, but we'll have a nice glass vase. :D

'Free time'? What is this 'free time' you speak of?

Yeah, I've just confirmed something I was afraid about. I will have no time to do anything this semester. Classes are just the beginning.

I tell people I'm taking 12 credits and then moan that I won't have time to do anything and they look at me wierd. So I tell them all 12 credits are for lab classes. The most straightforward of which is my Ecology class with two lectures a week and a single lab. No biggie there, its simple and interesting, although the proff is a bit awkward, I've dealt with worse. I get to listen to what creates climates and how species survive, etc. and then play with expensive technology in lab. Yay.

Next is Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy, with two lectures a week and two labs. This is going to be a hell of a lot of memorization but it will definately be the best class of the three. I may be a bio nerd for saying so, but playing with animal skulls and vertebrae is fun and the three disections we'll be doing (shark, cat, and sheep brain) are going to be awesome! We're talking about DINOSAURS now! :D

What will not be awesome will be Mammalian Physiology, where the teacher can't teach and is stumbling through slides in a painful way. I'll get around that and read the book. Lab, however interesting it will be, is going to cause me a lot of stress. I have confirmed today that experiment-labs can take 5 hours to complete and that for 3 experiments we will be using live rabbits. We'll be measuring out and adminstering anesthetics and at the end, euthenizing the rabbit. There are four possible positions you can take in your group for each experiment: surgan, assistant surgan, anasthesiologist, and note taker. I'm pretty sure I'll be able to do all of it, once I'm shown what to do. I'll probably just be a little quiet after lab. 

On top of this, I've got two part-time jobs (which I need to replace or I will go insane), I donate plasma twice a week, and I am an active member of zoology club. 

I'm doomed.

What are we going to do tonight, Brain?

Enough said, really. :D

What was I thinking?

Three Biol classes at once? Really? I didn't think that one out all the way, I can tell you that right now. The semester's only been in session for two days and I'm already thinking, "Crap, how am I going to survive?" 

Quick run down so far:

1) Mammalian Physiology--Ok, this class would rock if the teacher could actually teach. As it is we have to scramble to interpret his scrawled overheads as he whips through them at warp speed and trys to be entertaining while he stumbles his way through the lesson. The topic is really interesting, lab will suck ass and be emotionally draining and will probably keep me from keeping a rabbit as a pet for the rest of my life as they are the subjects for our experiments. 

2) Comparative Vertebrate Anatomy (CVA) Lab--Oh. My. God. THIS IS SO COOL! Right off the bat I know I'm hooked. I come into lab, not sure if we'll actually have class seeing as its the first day and we haven't had lecture yet, and there are full skeletons on the desks. The TAs are cool and relaxed and cracking jokes at us and we're playing with cat spines on strings so we can learn all the bones and their rediculous names. Despite all the memorization that will be involved and the near requirement to come into lab on our own time, this is going to be awesome. I hope lecture tomorrow is just as good.

3) Ecology--Ok, this is going to be a kinda BS class in my mind. That doens't mean I won't try or anything, but seriously, we spent the day defining Ecology, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere. The proff knows his shit and it looks like we'll be having a good class here. Yays!

4) Ecology Lab--A serious BS class. We had to learn how to critique scholarly journals and started an experiment which involved counting out duckweed sprouts. Seriously? In a 300 level biology class you don't think we know how to read and comprehend and rate scholarly journals? Gawd. We will, however, take "field trips" out onto campus to do...stuff. [shrug] whatever.

Overall, I've got a lot of shit to do all semester and, adding working at my two jobs to the mix, makes me a very busy girl. I've also got to work on my thesis proposal to get that finished up. Gah...

I'm off to drown my sorrows in ice cream and TV... 

Aaand back to school I go

Well, technically, I start class tomorrow. 

Minor detail, I know, but I just got all unpacked and everything and am battling a headache and decided "I haven't updated my blog in a while."

So, yeah. I'm back in Pullman. After a no-delay bus ride across state, where I read the entire time (Huzzah Pride and Prejudice) and noticed that the stick figures that adorned the ceiling escape hatch look like ninjas. 

Of couse as soon as I'm back in the apartment, I discover that the toilet is clogged and it took us --I kid you not-- an hour to fix it. (best part: Leah exclaiming "Its making favorable noises!" followed by a flush and a "WOO! VICTORY!") 

My bookcase is VERY full, thanks to x-mas gifts.

[sigh] its good to be back, but I'll miss everyone in Seattle. Expect a rant on my class tomorrow. I already know the teacher is an idiot, but we'll see about the class.

Happy 2009!

Happy New Years Everyone! 

Hope nobody's hurting this morning and that they got to watch the fireworks and had an awesome time! 

I was in a hotel room with a direct view of the spaceneedle, it was awesome! The one drawback was the crazy drunk man who ran around screaming racist comments and yelling "They've  got a sniper rifle *$#%!"

I'm not feeling 100% right now myself, but much better than I thoughtI would.

BTW, new favorite drink: Porn Stars (Blue Curacao and Sour Puss raspberry). Oh so much yum... tastes like candy... :)