Portfolio Power!

Hoorah! The Portfolio for the English class has my stomach turning loops since you have to turn it in on Wednesday before 4:00 to him personally or you get a 0! It's like some sort of ninja trial: Find me before sunset and give me the sacred manilla envelope or you will not learn the secret art of English! Fortunately I have a hint: He will be in his office all day, though he may run out for a few minutes to get lunch.

I was writing the "cover letter" for the portfolio, which is pretty much two paragraphs about what you learned over the semester, and it felt like I was writing a blog post about English class. Although I used bigger words and fancier sentence structure and less "Hoorah!"s.

Scottish Tournament

Yay! Tournament on Wednesday! Starts at 2:00 instead of 3:00! Just in case any of you were about to show up an hour late to our tournament! Hooray! I don't know why, but Heather is calling it the Scottish Tournament. I mean, if she doesn't want to get teased mercilessly about her new hubby, why suddenly transform into a Scottish stereotype? She lives and breathes Scotland now! And she's still in America! Aagh! Anyway, show up to the tournament. It is one hour earlier than usual so don't show up on time because if you do, you will be late.

The Excel spreadsheet I created for the purpose of digitally recording and calculating scores does not look in the slightest bit Scotland-y. It is all bright colors and rainbows. I think I'm going to change it to Scottish type color schemes, but all Scottish colors are ugly: Forest greens with dark blues with burnt oranges. Yuck. Gag me with a spoon.

Grade Counter

I developed a system for counting my grades. Every time you get a test grade back, subtract 90 and there is your score for that test. For example, if I've gotten a 96 and a 97 in Economics, I have a +6 and a +7. Therefore I can tell that for my final I can afford to get a -13. Of course, this method doesn't factor in that the final is usually weighted differently than the other tests. Fortunately most of my classes have finals that aren't heavier than the normal tests so this method actually works! Hooray!

P.S. When I told my Mom about my genius new counter scheme, she told me just to get an A on every test and then I would get an A for the course. Hmph. Mothers.

Too Many Breaks

Tomorrow is the first day of Thanksgiving Break. This means that I only have two days of school this week. Then when I come back to school I only have one day of class and then finals. What is up with that!? Not only that but every class is going to be doing "Test Review" because they don't want to cover anything new on the final. What's the point of even coming back? What we should do is combine Fall Break, Thanksgiving Break, and Christmas Break and just have an uber long advent.

Abandoned

Boo hoo. I was abandoned at school today. Physics ended fifteen minutes late so when I showed up at the UC turnaround, no one was there. I walked down to the parking lot but our car was gone. I called home twice. Finally, Mom called back and told me that Alexie had gotten home and then taken Andrew to driving class. Groan. A friend called and told me that Alexie had left a message telling me to wait in the UC turnaround. I did that for about ten minutes until I got bored of people coming up to me to check to see if I was alright. Mlah! I can't believe Alexie gave up on me when I have spent the past two Fridays lying on top of the car as people come up to me and ask if I was locked out of my car. How come it seems that lately all I do is sit around, wait for Alexie, and stare at people as they ask if I need help!?

Agenda Bust

Every day when I go to school I always have a plan for things I want to get done. Today at 3:30 I asked Mom if I could go to the RUF flag football "cereal bowl" to play some flag football. She said that would be fine. For the cereal bowl, you are supposed to bring a box of cereal to donate to the Chattanooga Food Bank and then you play.

Anyways, I brought three boxes of cereal: All banana nut cheerios. Dad had bought them because they were on sale months ago and we were trying very hard to get rid of them. Anyways, Dad drove me over to Challenger Field. The place was deserted. I then suggested that they might be on the new intramural fields. Being the trooper that he is, Dad drove me over there. Of course, I had no idea where it was since I had never been there but I had Carl Ware's "directions." (Note: Don't trust college interns bearing directions.) We finally found the intramural fields after accosting Trip, who also had no idea but gave us some more vague directions. So we arrived. No one. We asked a security officer who was sitting in his car at the field where there would be flag football. He called his buddy and then told us Challenger. We went back to Challenger: still no one. Anyway, my last hope was Chamberlain so Dad dropped me off and I ran there. No one. I decided to check the computer lab and re-read the facebook message from Carl telling me when it would be. The Computer Lab is closed on Saturdays.

Anyways, I was dejectedly trudging through the UC trying to call Carl when I saw this huge banner in the cafeteria that said: "CEREAL BOWL! RUF VS. THE HOUSE VS. WESLEY VS. THE OTHER HOUSE VS. THE CHRISTIAN STUDENT CENTER!! FRIDAY, NOV 20th!" So I realized that I was exactly 24 hours late. Bummer. And Dad was gone. And I tried to turn my paperwork for becoming a TA in to Mrs. Tolar but the Chemistry Annex is also closed on Saturdays. Ugh. So I called Dad. Fortunately he was at Choices so I ran over there, watered the daisies, and went home.

Maybe God just wanted me to water the daisies.

(Or maybe He wanted the Criminal Justice club to have at least one donor to their pathetic non-perishable food drive. Ha ha! Goodbye Banana Nut Cheerios!)

Anon(ymous)

Tonight I'm going to see a play! Hoorah! I've been doing Parking Appeals Committee for an hour and a half (longest meeting I've had yet), so a play will be a welcome change of pace. It'll be Anon(ymous) and starts at 7:30, about two hours from now. I lent Alexie all the cash in my backpack so that she could go see it and then realized I didn't have enough cash so that I could go see it. Supposedly we have money from work, but liquid assets (cash) are hard to come by.

P.S. To Grandma: If you are reading this blog post, the money I got from the thanksgiving card this morning really helped!

You know what I'm talking about

This morning I woke up to the dulcet tones of my sister telling me that Emily had dropped what amounted to an entire roll of toilet paper into the girls toilet and tried to flush it. Multiple times. Anyways, being the best plumber guy in the world besides Mario (and he's busy), I'm always the go-to guy in these situations. I got out of bed and promptly stepped on a toy. The toy slipped out from under me and I fell, smacking my head on the table. If it was brighter I would have been able to tell what toy I had tripped over and therefore know who to kill. Unfortunately it was dark so I had to resign myself to swearing to track down whoever left that toy there and then tie them to the pear trees near UTC campus that give off the dead fish smell. Then, I hear a sigh from one of the loft beds. Luke's voice wafts down, clearly disgusted, "That's not very funny, Duncan." Oh. Sorry, your majesty. Guess I'll have to try harder to amuse you the next time I trip. Anyways, grumbling I unstuffed the toilet and then came downstairs for morning devotions. Not a very good start to the day of my first final. (Whatever.)

Physics Applied

I was jamming through my Physics test today when I suddenly hit upon the extra credit question:
Extra Credit (3): For each chapter name how a concept from that chapter applies to either biology or medicine.

GASP!! Oh no! Physics are mathematical concepts! They don't apply to real life! So my head started throbbing like a car with its bass line volume turned to obliterate as I tried to think of something as fast as I could.

I think Dr. Marlowe was very worried for me since I was clutching my head and glaring at my paper. We made eye contact and he gave me a reassuring smile.
Anyways, I quickly made something up about how trees blowing in the wind and hormones working best at certain temperatures and blood running through veins and stuff. I don't think he's going to give me that extra credit.

Anyway, I was weeping tears of blood on the way home and explaining my woes to Alexie when she interrupted, "Why didn't you just think of a way you could kill someone using each of the principles you needed to apply? That would have been easy to remember."

That Alexie is one smart cookie, I'm telling you. Just out of curiosity I've been trying to follow her advice but simple harmonic motion (swaying trees) has got me stumped. Perhaps you could shoot waves at someone's brain causing it to vibrate and when it reaches resonance, it pops! or something...

SOB

When helping my dad read x-rays, I get to see all sorts of moronic idiosyncracies. One of which is shortening everything AMAP (As much as possible, LOL.) For example, if you wanted to say "no acute changes" you would say "rho acute delta." (By rho and delta I mean the Greek symbols, not the actual words.)

Anyway, we came upon one X-ray today and in the "Chief Complaint's:" section it read "SOB." I instantly wondered to myself whether this guy was a SOB or he knew a SOB. Either way, it wasn't a chest x-ray he was needing. So, being the immature guy that I am, I pointed it out and laughed. Dad ignored me for a while and then said "It stands for Shortness of Breath." These people need to find acronyms that don't already have meanings.

UTC's Red Tide

I'm not sure why UTC randomly stinks every couple of days. It just does. When I step outside and take a deep breath, I suddenly realize that people aren't paying too close attention to the "No Smoking Within 40 Feet of an UTC door" rule. So I hold my breath and run a couple yards until I step outside the 40 feet of the door mark, because after all who would smoke in such a faraway inconvenient place like that? Anyways, I take a huge breath since I had nearly been killed by second-hand smoke and realize the entire air smells like dead fish. Aaagh! I suppose we are near a river, so occasional river stink should be typical, but why does this only happen every now and then? Blech. It smells like the Red Tide always did back in Florida. Makes me gag. Perhaps instead of dying of second-hand smoke, I'll die of second-hand dead fish.

Force

We all know by now that F=ma, right? If that's the case, what is the best way to force add a class? I have a pretty low mass, so maybe I should eat some more to prepare? Maybe I should be more dense, since m = pV, I could increase my mass directly. I'm not dense in the slightest although my sister does often say that my volume is too high... Hm, Physics really is hard.

Worst part is, I can pour energy into this until I'm blue in the face, but it only counts as work if it takes me somewhere.

Latin Skits

For the past few weeks we've been performing Latin Skits that we wrote ourselves. Dr. Davies is holding out on giving us our tests back because the best skit will receive extra test credit. My group wrote a skit entitled "Sweenus Toddus, Daemon Tonsor Viae Fleetae." Ha ha! It's better than "Scoobus Doobus" anyway. He he. Anyways Dr. Davies came in to class yesterday and said "Hey everyone, apparently this Sweeney Todd guy is famous! I was explaining your skit to the other class and they said 'Hey! That sounds like Sweeney Todd!' Isn't that amazing?" We all laughed at his expense. Ha ha!

Why do we need to experience writing Roman Comedy when Latin class is so hilarious?

Human Nature

Yesterday I was sitting on the couch reading my UTC catalog while Emily sat next to me talking. If you don't know already, Emily is the thing that never shuts up. I listen to her jabber for a couple minutes and whenever there is a pause I will nod and say, "uh-huh..." Yesterday I discovered that Emily was actually saying something interesting. She was explaining to me who exactly her favorite baseball team was. Now this surprised me because we McPhersons only talk about baseball to be polite. I know only the smallest handful of baseball teams and they are only the ones that people really love because they win all the time or the ones that people really hate because they lose all the time. Anyway, any bets on who Emily's favorite baseball team was?

No seriously, guess.

Whatever you guessed, you were wrong. Emily's favorite baseball team is "The team that always beats Charlie Brown's team." This strikes me as odd because the only person on that team that actually has a name is Peppermint Patty. When I asked her why this was her favorite team she said, "Because they always win." Ta-da! Now we have some idea why the Yankees are so popular.

Lack of Insight

For some reason Dad has not been psyching me up about the MCAT. After I came back from the first Pre-Med meeting I was all like "Here is my plan for the next four years! a-HA!" But then, because I am indecisive, I was all like "Hmmm. Maybe I should get some advice from someone who has actually done this before." Today was the second time I asked "Hey Dad, what classes would you advise for the MCAT?" and he gave the same response: "Biology, Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, and Physics." I asked "What Else?" and he responded "Get a good night's sleep." I asked about Histology. "Nope. No histology on the MCAT." I asked what class he would advise to minimally improve my chances on the MCAT. "Ahhh. Physiology would round off your Biology quite nicely." So after about an hour of weedling, I have one class recommendation and a pretty boring one at that. (Of course Histology looks so boring that if I don't have to take it for the MCAT, I'm going to take something like Mammalogy or Herpetology instead.)

Decisive Action

AAARHGHGHH!! You know the worst thing about being indecisive? The worst part about being indecisive is that you never know what you are going to do!! Everything sounds good and something else always sounds better but when you've finally got up enough nerve to decide to follow grass-greener-on-the-other-side plan B, the class fills up and your left with hey-this-isn't-grass,-these-are-weeds plan C. I've decided to take Genetics, Microbiology, Latin, Scientific Writing and Physics next semester. Yes, this will require me to grow enough nerve endings to force add a class AND it will mean I will be taking three labs.

Of course, what has REALLY got me by the moustache is the fact that the 9:00-9:50 section of Scientific Writing FILLED UP!!!! AAAGHH! Now my MWF days start at 8:00 and end at 10:00 EXCEPT on Wednesday when I have two labs so my day ends just in time for fencing at 3:00. This means I will be lounging around for two hours on Monday and Friday so that I can have lunch with my friends. Good news: I can have lunch on Wednesday because the Physics lab ends at 12:00 and the Genetics lab starts at 1:00. Heh heh heh.

P.S. I was never intending to eat lunch on Tuesday and Thursday, lo and behold even though I removed the perpetrator (Philosophy), it was instantly replaced by a new bothersome class. (Genetics.) Aaagh! Actually the real problem child is Physics because it runs from 12:05 to 1:20, but it is given by the teacher I love, Dr. Marlowe, so I refuse to drop it! Even if it means no lunch for a semester!

More Option Play

Isn't it frustrating how many forks in the road of life there are? It seems like only last month I was deciding whether I wanted to take this route or that route. Then I chose route two and hit a road block: The class filled up instantaneously. So here are a couple of options:

Option 1: Go back to the last fork in the road and take Option 1, Anatomy etc.
Option 2: Force Add my way into Microbiology. (According to the schedule of classes, two people have already done this.)
Option 3: Move my plan ahead a semester and take Genetics. (I wanted to take it with friends in case it was Evolutionary.)
Option 4: Go totally nuts and take two Gen Ed. courses. (Probably PHIL 101 and 102 in one semester.)

So input. Option 4 would take me a while to create and I would have to probably make some sacrifices. (Like lunch on Wednesday.) Option 3 is the most appealing because the Genetics course is at 8:00 in the morning so I won't have any classes during lunch break. On the other hand, the Genetics course is at 8:00 in the morning which compromises breakfast. What is it with classes and mealtimes!? (Maybe I just eat too many meals...)

Uhon Students

GARGH! Both sections of Microbiology have filled up and the Seniors aren't even signing up yet!! I don't think even the graduate students are signing up yet! It's only the Uhon students! Come on, you pasty nerds! What is so exciting about Microbiology that it is in such high demand!? Now, I'm going to have to FORCE ADD my way into this class which is irritating because it requires paperwork and people skills! GARGH!!!

I'm melting! MELTING!!!