Talk, Talking A Lot, But It's Still Talk

I wish the 15th would hurry up and get here - I want to watch Juno like twenty times in a row.

(Oh.  Hey, everybody.  What's up?)

I'm still as busy as hell, but it's easier to handle now that I'm feeling more upbeat.  And this weekend is actually going to be relatively leisurely, since my Evolution & History of Life midterm isn't hanging over my head anymore.  I hate that class.  I get up every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday already bored in anticipation of the lecture.  And the lab.  Dear God, the lab - easily the most aggravating two hours of my week.  Like last Tuesday?  We're still studying ancient sea organisms (even though you'd think we'd have progressed to land-dwelling creatures by now), and our lab assignment was to separate a bunch of fossils of the same phyla into species.  The only catch was that some of the fossils were in pieces, sometimes very small pieces, and we still had to try to classify as many of those as we could.  Even so, it should have taken all of fifteen minutes, but since the girl I usually partner with wasn't there I got stuck with the most anal-retentive guy in the room.  Apparently he missed the part of the instructions that allowed us to disregard the pieces that were too small or warped to identify, because he was determined to classify every frigging granule.


And so on.  For almost an hour.  We were the last ones in there by far, and the TA kept coming over and saying stuff like, "You guys don't have to be super-specific - some of the pieces aren't identifiable.  Really."

You don't say.  Needless to say, it was kind of a pain, and pretty typical of that lab, sadly.

But yeah, it's been kind of a weird week overall.  My social life suddenly picked up, although I don't think I did anything to instigate that.  And I had this weird prophetic dream on Monday: I dreamed that the fire alarm went off while I was in the shower, and when I woke up I was like, "Ha, that would be a pain in the ass" and went to take a shower.  And I kid you not, just as I was turning the water off the alarm started shrieking. 

I did not go running outside in my towel, however.  Maybe if there was smoke in the hallway I would have, but come on.  Everyone was just kind of ambling outside, so I took the opportunity to get dressed first.

And on Tuesday I was a lab rat in one of the sociology department's experiments.  I won't go into a ton of detail because it really wasn't that interesting, but basically I was paid $20 to spend an hour filling out questionaires and spitting in a test tube at certain intervals.  I also had to write a speech at one point, but that part was designed to stress me out.  The thing is, I figured out what was going on pretty early in the game, so it really wasn't that painful.

I don't know if any of that makes sense.  It was kind of a weird experiment, though - I can't really think of a way to describe it that wouldn't take ages, and it's really not worth the effort of writing it all out.

There were other incidents as well, but I'm going on forever here so I think I'll just disregard them.  Actually, I think I'll stop now and go outside - it's ridiculously nice out today.  And later on I'll probably go see 21 - it feels like I haven't been to a movie in months (although truthfully I saw Vantage Point while I was on break).  Anyway, I'm off.

*plops down*  Whew!  I just spent about an hour dancing around my dorm room like crazy to this song.  Go listen to it (or at least part of it) and you'll understand why I'm worn out now - it's pretty fast, and I guess I was closer to flailing than dancing per se.

(Just a warning - it's almost a guarantee that it'll get stuck in your head if you listen to it, so follow the link with caution.)

I also did a good portion of this so-called "dancing" in front of my mirror and thus was able to confirm that, yes, I am an energetic but terrible dancer.  Like, if someone was trying to dance with me I'd probably smack them in the face by accident.  Repeatedly.  So often that it would cease to look like an accident and I'd probably be arrested.

Anyway, if any of you actually checked the song out, you probably have some serious doubts as to my taste in music right now (and are probably also cursing me because now it won't get out of your head.  Ha!)  I don't know why I like it, either, but I'm feeling pretty manic at the moment, so maybe it's just a mood thing.

Wow, this post is really pointless.  Like, beyond my usual.  Whoops.

I need to turn off the music and finish my homework anyway.  I have finals in a week and I haven't really studied all that much yet.  And I'm nursing a serious grudge against my Biology professor for testing us over the whole semester's worth of material.  (I know that's the point of a final, but none of my other professors are doing it and it's at least twenty chapters of crap.  NOT ON.)

Also, the lab sucks.  We keep dissecting things, and even though it doesn't particularly gross me out, it is getting tedious (and the smell isn't exactly a plus, either.)  As if that's not annoying enough, today we were talking about the reproductive system.  And if for some reason you're laboring under the delusion that college students can be mature about this sort of thing, allow me to correct you: they can't.  Didn't help that the TA was talking about it all in his incomprehensible accent, and he's also the last person I want to hear talking about anything even remotely related to sex.

"I wonder," I mused to myself as the TA rambled on about VAA-gin-uhs (to a chorus of undignified giggles and snorts), "if I could beat my head against the table hard enough to knock myself unconscious."

And, once again, I was the sucker who had to do all the actual dissecting.

"I could be doing anything else right now," I hissed to the guy sitting across from me.  "I could be reading The Iliad, finishing my Philosophy essay, studying for my Stats final-"

"Or sleeping," he supplied helpfully, slurping his coffee.

"-Or sleeping," I agreed, slicing through the lifeless (and curiously flattened) animal on my tray recklessly.  "And it would be infinitely preferable to molesting a dead rat before ten a.m.."

(We were dissecting them so we could examine their reproductive organs, so as to illustrate the material we're covering this chapter.)

"I'll give either one of you twenty bucks if you lick the rat," another guy said, leering as he leaned over the table to check out either the organs spilling out of the dead rodent or my breasts - it was hard to tell.  I opened and closed the dissecting scissors threateningly and he leaned back in his chair, falling asleep in about five seconds.

As you can see, only geniuses are accepted here.  And I really am going now.

I wrote exactly four paragraphs for Accepting Irony last night - it's the most productive I've been in a while as far as that story's concerned.  I'm getting tired of all the interference with my attempts to write the chapter - I thought once midterms were over I'd have more time to work on it, but I've still been insanely busy.  Curse you, college! *shakes fist*

Still.  I'm glad I managed to write a little, though.  I'm chipping away at this bit by bit - I think I just need to make the time and finish already.

Hmm, I'm kind of having a hard time typing this because of a minor accident involving a razor.  Apparently I shouldn't be allowed to handle objects with sharp edges, because I somehow managed to fumble my razor and take a chunk out of one of the nails on my left hand while shaving my legs.  As you might imagine, it hurt . A lot.  But I handled it with my usual mature grace, if dropping the razor and screeching, "Oh, holy FUCK!" qualifies as mature and graceful.  Anyway, the Band-Aid keeps getting in the way and hitting the capslock key, so every time I try to type something it comes out looking liKE THis.   Nice.

But that's hardly relevant. 

Oh, and my mom's coming up for Parents' Weekend or whatever, so that's exciting.  I'll be glad to see her even though she tried to thwart my attempt to lose weight.  How?  Well, I'll tell you.


So, I'm sure that was scintillating.

Most notable of all, though, is that at long last I've caught up with Season 4 of House, because I finally found a site where I can watch the episodes online (for some reason Fox's website wasn't working.)  I have to say that I'm enjoying this season much more than the third one, probably because of the fresh faces.  I was getting tired of Cameron, Foreman, and Chase - the new blood is refreshing.  Although I am glad that they aren't entirely out of the picture. I'll admit.  Can't figure out why Cameron's blonde all of a sudden, though - personally I think she looked better as a brunette. 

Wilson is as terrific as ever, thank heaven.  God, I love that guy.  It takes balls to steal House's guitar.  Balls of steel.

Anyway, out of the new candidates, who do you guys think the new team's going to be?  Let's discuss.

Maybe somewhere people still think of the Fourth of July as a patriotic holiday rather than a free day off work and an excuse to use some dangerous explosives.  My neighborhood definitely gravitates toward the latter.  Anyway, my friend who lives down the street always has sparklers, etc on the Fourth, but this year.  This year there were more than sparklers and firecrackers.  There were bona fide fireworks, which she saved for our big finale.  We zip through the smaller stuff (although I did manage to nearly catch her house on fire with one of those), and she pulls out this big tube and a couple of packs of the fireworks, which take the form of balls with fuses on them, three to a pack.

Well, maybe one of us should have thought to read the directions.  I might have, but after the whole nearly burning down her house thing, I wasn't keen on lighting these myself.  So I watched from what I thought was a safe distance as she plopped a pack of the fireworks on the ground, considered it for a moment, then lit one of the fuses.

She barely had time to back off before all three of the balls exploded.  You know how fireworks are supposed to shoot up in the sky?  These were on the ground, throwing these huge sparks in all directions.  We ran like loons, screaming various versions of "OH, SHIT!" while dodging these fireballs.  Kids hanging around the cul-de-sac setting off tame little smoke grenades were just staring at us with loose jaws.

It was pretty cool, actually.  I wish someone had got it on tape.  There was one point when this big spark burst right in front of me, and I leapt back, then immediately twisted to the left because another spark was about to hit that spot.  It was pretty slick, if I do say so myself.  Anyway, after about ten very intense seconds, it was over except for a few smoldering spots on the lawn.  We both just kind of fell onto the grass and started laughing like maniacs.

After we calmed down, I picked up that tube I mentioned before and read it.  Apparently you were supposed to put the balls in there, one at a time, after unwrapping the really long fuse around the ball that I guess my friend didn't notice before.  Things went pretty smoothly once we cleared that up, although it wasn't nearly as exciting as nearly blowing ourselves up.

God Bless America.  Whee.