Bus Conversations: Cougar Gladiators

I've come to the conclusion that buses are the best places to overhear amusing conversations. Today one such conversation happened as we passed Beasley Coliseum and the rather exhuberant driver announced it two boys (despite the fact that they could have only been 2 years younger than me at most) had a very, very entertaining idea:

"We should use the coliseum as a coleseum and have gladiator battles."

"Not like American Gladiator battles either. We'll use swords and lions and shit."

"Split classes into two teams and have them fight for their grades."

"Only the survivors pass the class."

"You'd battle your TA's and shit."

"Haha! [mimics sword in stomach] 'Noooo! I was a graduate student!"

Oh, college. Only here can your prove without a doubt that boys will remain boys until they're at least 25...

Busses, Doctors, and Warhol...Oh my! (with bonus material!)

A whole bunch to write on, because a whole lot has amused me in the past few days so...prepare yourself for some random thought dump-age! Here we go! List away!

1) Pullman Transit

I rode with the friendliest bus driver I've ever seen the other day and he amused all of our class-weary minds on our way to "apartment-land" even as we were all crammed in rather like sardines. He even suggested crowd-surfing someone up to the front of the bus to get him off. It was fun. I also heard a suggestion that may actually be a good one: Pullman should get double-decker busses! It would help with the whole 'too many people' thing at rush times (essentially before every hour). What made this suggestion even better was the comment that followed: "Because its so much fun stumbling up the stairs of a double-decker when you're completely

shit-faced." Oh Pullman, how classy your inhabitants are...

I should also include one of today's "Overheard in Pullman" as its very fittign and amusing.

"Have you ever been with me before? I drive fast as shit!" - Said the wild-eyed transit driver to

the group of freaked-out freshmen

2) Parasitology

Parasitology on Weds was a movie day, which you know is ALWAYS great. Until you remember you're in Parasitology and what that will mean in a special entitled "Parasites: eating us alive." Yup, lots of graphic moments and gory descriptions. The worst thing was not the worms moving around on MRIs or X-rays or whatever, it was seeing people walking around with Elephantiasis and legs 3x the size of their other one. Gah. The whole special was overly melodramatic and the audio didn't always match the video, but the best part which made me start giggling at a horribly inappropriate moment was this one quote:

"...Until one of the doctors remembered his med school training..."

Because it took how many days and people dying of a parasitic infections for a doctor to remember the training he got for, oh, I don't know...his job?! What was he going off of before? Magic 8 Ball predictions..."Is this a virus? Hmmm...'Reply hazy, try again'." Gawd...

3) Art Theory

We covered Andy Warhol on Weds in my Art Theory class and I was reminded why I love him so much. He's so quirky. He was also one of those people you just have to smile at when he descrbes his philosophy for art as: "Art is everything, and everything is art." He's also such an interesting person because he accepted everyone for who/what they are and at the same time shook up the art world by making art out of things/of things that, before then, weren't art. I found out he did commercial advertisments and was proud of them. Hell, I would be too! Take a look!

Yeah, We're doing Roy Lichtenstein on Friday. Will probably have more then. :)

4) Animal Development

I've apparently taken too many uper-devision science classes for this lab. I had a quiz today and was overthinking absolutely EVERYTHING! Its a good thing I caught myself and dumbed my answers down to a 300 level class (although I think it should be 200 level...), so I think I did good.

A mini side rant here: If you're listening to music on your iPod and you have the volume up high enough that I can hear the song clear enough to sing along with your music perfectly from 20 feet away...you might want to turn it down a smidgen before you...I dunno...blow out your ear-drum. Oh. Wait. Too late. Try getting better ear-buds, kid. On a related note, AC/DC isn't really good pre-test music. It just made me wanna watch Supernatural (New episode tonight!)

5) My zany friends

A few random moments here:

Road trips to Lewiston/Clarkston to buy a shit ton of beer for party this weekend draws some pretty interesting looks. Especially when you've got an entire cart full of beer. :) I've also sold my soul...I went grocery shopping in Wal-Mart [sigh] I'm such a supporter for human rights... Another fitting "Overheard" here:

"I'm not gonna drink Busch Light! What do you think I am, a freshman?" - How cosmopolitan. Where's your monocle Mr. Sophistication?

Tiffany is going to color-code her children so she has no problem telling them apart (at least until someone cough*me*cough teaches them to swap clothes just the screw with their mother's head). She and I are also very likely to have twins.

Little Lou the cat is crazy and has a bag fixation: If you offer him a bag he'll crawl inside and lay down so you can tote him around in a grocery sack. Hillarity ensues when he manages to get a leg out of a hole and tries to escape/defend himself from tickling-tormentors. It also leads to the ultimate perfect moment quote: "Well, the cat's out of the bag now..."

6) Maitenance

They're still working on the hot water tank right now (banging and clanging around), so I still don't have water. It will be done tonight though, John (my landlord) said so when he poked his head out of the laundry room to answer my question.

Bird Parasites

Just had a moment (Okay, several) while talking with my friend Leah on AIM

Leah: Dude, there's an OWL!

Me: Outside?!

Leah: Yeah!

Me: Picture?

Leah: Can't see him. I can only hear him.

Me: Oh, it is dark...

Leah: Yes. Yes it is. Where have you been?

Me: I've been cramming bird parasites into my brain.

Leah: Lol.

Me: That came out wrong...

A few quotes and randomness for a Monday

Should be studying Parasitology right now, but I can't focus. Nor can I watch the movie I have stuck in my head (Gladiator) because I don't own it. So instead I'm posting a few quotes I collected over the past few days and a few amusing moments.

Quotes:

"It's been a while since I've stalked a famous person." - Prof. Andersen

"Like cutting butter with a chainsaw." - Classmate quoting Theater Prof.

“As much as I’d like to, I cannot sustain myself on Ben and Jerry’s, so my reasoning takes over and I eat broccoli.” – Prof. Andersen

“It’s like…an out of body experience…with art.” – Me on Immanuel Kant’s ‘rant’ on beauty

Texting with friend sitting two seats over:

Courtney: I am freakin’ tired

Me: You’re not alone.

Courtney: I know. Lol. Everyone’s dozing off.

Me: Yeah. Apparently brain eating amoebae aren’t enough on a Monday.

Class Rants:

Yeah, so we were covering two of the most disturbing amoeba species I’ve ever heard of. Screw Entamoeba histolytica, these two have no reason to keep us alive.

Naegleria fowleri – this is my newest reason in a LONG line of reasons I will not go swimming in fresh water. Besides just hating the feeling of the lake/river bed, I’m now aware of a free-living amoeba that can be present that will eat your brain. Yeah. As if that weren’t enough, it only takes 5-6 days to kill you and is very difficult to diagnose. I know it’s rare and all that rot (approx. 200 cases worldwide, 81 in USA, 6 in 2007)but the thought of an parasite getting to my brain because I got water up my nose and an amoeba decided to shimmy up the olfactory nerve to munch at my grey matter is more than enough to keep me away from lakes/ponds/rivers for…pretty much my entire life. The fact that it has a 95% fatality rate simply reiterates that.

Acanthamoeba – because just having shitty eyesight and having to deal with contact lenses isn’t enough stress already, now there’s an amoeba that will gnaw its way into your eye if it gets caught under your contact lens. Perfect. Good news: this is primarily from people washing their contacts with tap water or handling your lenses after playing in dirt. Bad news: supposedly it’s also a risk when you shower with your contacts in (do this all the time). Perfect. Thank you so very much Parasitology, I’m going to become a paranoid hermit because of you. Especially because graphic photographs seem to be a must for every parasite we look at. Ugh. What’s more, this doesn’t only go after your eyes, and given the other possibility, you’re going to hope you only get this in your eyes. Aside from Acanthamoeba keratitis (the infection of your cornea/eye by Acanthamoeba trophs/cysts) Acanthamoeba may also cause a granulomatous amebic encephalitis, which has no known treatments and is thus 100% fatal. You don’t even need to translate this whole thing to know what it does. All you need to know is what the last word means: encephalitis. That means it attacks the brain. Enough said.

On that cheerful, disturbing, note, I’m going to study their less-dangerous cousins, the Entamoeba species and other lovely disease causing parasites like the Leishmania species and Plasmodium species (cause malaria). Oh how I love my chosen major right now...

Studying After A Long Day Doesn't Work Well

Especially when you're studying with a friend. And studying biology. When you're both Bio majors. Why you ask? Because you're tired and your twisted mind starts making everything horribly hillarious even if they're deadly parasites. I did learn several interesting things today however!

Studying paraitology and reading out facts for each species leads to some very realizations:

"'Undulating' is a dirty word. In the same sense that 'moist' is a dirty word."

Shortening parasite names to species names allows you to humanize them and remember them just like you remember the douche-bag in class who always argues with the professor:

"donovani is a sandfly licking, leishmania spreading, fiend!"

Dramatic pauses and emphasis are always welcome when reading dry descriptions of parasitic diseases:

"...and may lead to...DEATH...in 2-3 years...if untreated."

"Has 100% mortality...if untreated."

Parasitology makes me never want to leave the Pacific Northwest ever because of all the parasitic diseases in the tropics and in Africa and in Central and South America:

"If I ever see a Kissing Bug, I'm going to flip out..."

"Where are they native?"

"Well, they found this one in Texas."

"Never going to Texas."

Two of our classmates probably think we're insane now given how loud we were laughing (I actually had tears forming) but that's ok. We already knew we were.

You know you're in a boring class when:

1) You see more than 10 laptops in front of you on facebook

2) You're counting on 2 hands the number of people in your vacinity who are doing the crossword/sudoku in the Daily Evergreen

3) You have to nudge your friends to keep them awake

4) Only about 1/3 of the class remembers to do the online homework assignment

5) Nobody takes notes

6) Neither you nor the TA sitting beside you is paying any attention

7) You spend the entire class period working on plotlines for novels with said TA sitting next to you

8) You doodle very elaborate flowers in the margin of your notes. Complete with shading and individual seed details.

Needless to say, today was boring.

The highlight, however was getting home to discover my order from Threadless came in and my digital cameras from my dad for my thesis project came too (they're so cute!)

Browncoat day and amusing art class quotes

Yeah, I was definately reading Plato this morning at 9. That doesn't work to well, let me tell you. Before 10:30, thinking about philosophy causes small portions of your brain to die as they try to comprehend abstract concepts. I had a rater amusing look on my face when my boss came to give me more work though.

My new short hair is lovely, although I had Shepherd Book hair this morning which prompted the start to much Firefly/Serenity awesomeness on my facebook:

Status: "Did a rather impressive imitation of Shepherd Book's hair this morning. :) it tried to eat my head."

Kess: "Haha! Did River come running in, then ran away screaming? Cuz that would be hilarious"

Me: "Sadly, no. It would have been awesome though. :)"

Leah: "well, even if river didn't come running in, was Zoe at least a LITTLE taken aback?"

Elizabeth: "Well, obviously river was hiding from the hair, hence her failure to make an appearance."

Andrew: "Haha, excellent! I won't scream/laugh if'n ya got fresh strawberries to share!"

Me: "Glad there are so many browncoats out there catching my references! :-D"

Kess: "Shh! Don't let the alliance hear you"

Me: "But we can't be killed by them because we're so very pretty. We're too petty to die. :-D"

Kess: "Besides, they'd never make it past Vera"

Me: "Or our public relations specialist. Even if he's lacking Vera."

Other amusing moments came in my Art/Art Theory class as we're talking about Plato's background before we got into his philosophy on art:

"You leave the tribe, you're on your own!" -Prof. Andersen on Denmark

"Trust me, or my goons will break yours legs!" -Prof. Andersen on Democracy

Glad the day's finally over though, time to load some Parasitology pictures on the Facebook page, read some e-mails, and chill.

P.S. Gym Class Heroes concert in October will KICK ASS! I'm so EXCITED!

Labor Day Weekend!

Everyone loves three-day-weekends! I think I've gotten more sleep in the last two days than most the week! It feels soooo good!

I've also been very impressed with Syfy this weekend, they've had some fun marathons to watch! Because I have a weakness for supernatural shows about cryptozoology and hunting ghosts. So the day long marathons of Destination Truth (always amusing) and Ghost Hunters (good backgrounds while I write papers). Its a good lead up to the SUPERNATURAL PREMEIRE!

Went to the first Cougar Football game of the year, had fun with friends and getting back into the traditions of the year. Sadly it wasn't enough, although we did play better than we did last year. Hopefully we won't suck as much as we did last year!

"E. coli! You Bastard! Where are you?"

Parasitology lab was amusing thanks to me and Tiffany's banter. According to this, I'm a special type of genius. E. coli is an evil hiding bastard. I'm a fountain of all knowledge. E. nana is rediculously small and hard to find. I did manage to take a few cool pictures through the microscope though.

Entamoeba histolytica trophozoite

Entamoeba coli cyst

Also, Amazon may have redeemed itself by shipping Supernatural season 4 today. I will get it before the season 5 premere, so I'm content. I'll be able to have my pre-premiere potluck afterall! :D