Danny

For the past week, and for a few days more, we've had another member in the McPherson Family. His name is Danny and he is about Andrew's age. He eats a ton of breakfast, goes to McCallie for the entire day, returns about dinner time, and then eats a ton of dinner. Although he eats great quantities, he does discriminate in his tastes. A few days ago, he came in to dinner and we were eating some sort of meat. Anyway, Alexie was the only person still eating at that time so the interchange was very entertaining:

Danny: Hey, Lexie. What's the protein value in this?

Alexie: Who cares?

Danny: No, I just really want to know. Can I see the case this came in?

Alexie: No. I threw it away.

Danny: Oh.

...

Danny: Can I see a case of the same type of meat?

Alexie: GRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

Recently, we were all having a drawing contest to see who could draw Danny the best. Alexie won. I scanned in the picture and if I can figure out how to attach it it will be below:

I was going to post this to Facebook so his sisters could enjoy it but I couldn't figure out how to upload pictures to Facebook so I gave up. Ah well. At least it is online!

Bureaucracy

Yesterday I heard a story from my parents' youth which was so funny, I decided to post it here. When Mom and Dad were dating, Mom came over to Dad's family's apartment to visit. Dad's apartment was on the third floor. Anyway, while visiting Grandma asked Mom to run a letter out to the mail chute. Mom sprinted over, tried to put the mail in, but the mail chute was full. She couldn't stuff it in. She reported back so then Grandma called the front desk. They went to check what was up and it turned out that the chute was full of mail up to third floor. At this point they were thinking, "What the heck? Where is that mailman?" As it turned out the mailman had died and the postal service hadn't noticed. The postal service quickly fixed the error by hiring a new guy and the day was saved. Isn't the federal government incredible? To run a business that doesn't even notice when one of its employees dies and therefore stops reporting in to work?

Amnesty

Yesterday, during Physics Lab, my teacher walked up to me with last week's report.

"Mr. McPherson, vere is your report?" Dr. Allen asked, glaring.

"Ah... Last week I forgot to turn it in until it was 5:00 and since it was late I figured I just wouldn't turn it in..." I muttered. Dr. Allen glared at me for a while and then straightened up.

"For zis veek only, amnesty!" She yelled for the benefit of the entire class. "No more. Just zis veek. You may turn in last veek's lab report today, but from now on, you must turn it in Friday! Zis veek only!!"

I don't think anybody cared, seeing as I was probably the only one dumb enough to forget the deadline.

Penmanship

Today I was sitting in Latin class when Dr. Davies entered the room. He always picks about half a dozen students to write the answers up on the whiteboard. I wrote 1-3. After all the answers were written down. Dr. Davies was surveying them.

"Sam!" Dr. Davies exclaimed. "This is incredible penmanship! The best in class!"

Sam tried to look like she didn't exist, or at least that Dr. Davies must have been talking to some other Sam. Then Dr. Davies thoughtfully observed the board some more.

"Duncan!" Dr. Davies exclaimed again. "Are you going to be a doctor?"

The moment he said it I realized why he was asking.

"Yes," I said, "I have awful penmanship."

Dr. Davies nodded sagely, "My dad was a doctor and I couldn't ever read anything he wrote."

Of course, people usually figure out my major based on the fact that I'm an insufferable know-it-all and am at the top of all my classes. Hm. Weird.

Alexie

Alexie said I should make a blog post about how awesome she is. She followed it up by advising that I don't actually do so because every time I mention her online, you lovely blog readers start talking to her about stuff you read on the blog while she tries to figure out how you know these things. Well, now you can creep her out some more with some random trivia that may or may not be true.

1) Last semester she gave her teacher, Dr. Covino a piece of yummy yellow cake that was left over from Classics Club. This might or might not be the only reason she got an 'A' in this class.

2) A few days ago she tried to get a picture of Dr. Davies on her phone. He got mad and rebuked her. Anyway, she now has a picture of Dr. Davies on her phone, but you can't see his face because he put his hand up to block it.

3) She decided that someday in her future she will become a teacher and include in her syllabus "Cake... 3%" She will remind her students not to put this off to the last second, because if she gets a rush of cake in the last week of the semester she might not be able to eat it all immediately and the students won't get their grade.

I know two of these fun trivia facts are about cake, but that was what we were talking about on the way home, so tough.

Newsprint Hand

I have a super awesome strategy for remembering stuff: Write whatever you need to do on your arm and every time it fades, rewrite it until you no longer need to do it. Ha! The only problem is that it makes my hand look like I fell asleep reading a newspaper and got print all over my hand. Sigh. Anyways, currently I have notes to find a bionic article (done) and finish Genetics Homework (not done, aah!) on my hand so I suppose I'll get stop blogging and get back to those.

Groundhog Day

I actually have so many commitments on Feb 2. that I have e-mailed all of them to myself. I have the Banner test, Fencing, Lacrosse (I wanted to swing by and see what was up and since they sent out a UTC memo pleading for members, I figured it was now or never.), and a possible Pro-life club meeting (It looks like it will fall through, but I decided to remind myself anyway.) Also, Groundhog Day could be the day of my first test if my Physics Teacher decides to move the test back because of the snow day at the beginning of the year. Sigh. Looks like it is going to be a long winter.

Be Prepared

Ha! Last week Alexie never came with my dinner so I spent six hours suffering from teenage male scale hunger. (On the richter scale, that would be a 6.) Today I planned ahead! I have brought with me six sandwiches and two liters of soda. Ha ha! Now I'll never go hungry! Hooray!

The downside is that carrying this much food makes my bag almost as heavy as Ariel's. (It still isn't comparable to Megan's, but whatever.) If I do this every Thursday, I will end up with some severe spondylosis in my old age. *shudder*

I've been wondering throughout the day... which is heavier - a cubic meter of paper or a cubic meter of peanut butter sandwiches and soda? Hmmmm...

On the other hand, this means that my friends study about as much as I eat.

Mail Order

Tomorrow in Science Writing there will be a discussion about the first chapter of the book. Unfortunately for me the book has not arrived yet. It is somewhere between Amazon and my house. Mom suggested I go to the bookstore and stand there reading it, but I think there is probably a rule against that. Also, last time I was there, the entire section with the books was roped off and you could only get books by requesting them. And a third problem is that the one in the bookstore is not the book we'll be discussing tomorrow. Our teacher told us the first day of class that due to a miscommunication the book in the bookstore was the wrong book. Alas. All the variables seem stacked. I'm just going to hope that because I never shut up usually, the teacher will not call on me to answer questions.

Oh the Stinks you can Stink

Last night at RUF, the entire gym had just been cleaned and the entire building reeked of cleanness. I always thought the chemicals that Mom made us use on our house were bad, but this was 100 times more powerful. Dad could even smell it on me when he picked me up last night. John Craft was broken-hearted. Apparently, the church didn't think they'd have RUF tonight. (Maybe they suspected all the RUFers would be at the basketball game. Ha.) The way the guys who witnessed it described it made it sound like a truck full of ammonia was driven up and they hosed down the gym in it. Anyways, there were some seriously heavy fumes in that building. It was further complicated by the fact that none of the windows in the building can open and there are only two doors: both at the entrance. It felt like someone was trying to fumigate us.

Doing What You Are Told

Today in Parking Appeals I had a unique dilemma: For the first time since I started someone had gotten a doctor's note. Usually someone writes in and says something like: "Oh, I broke my leg and I haven't been able to walk more than ten feet without intense suffering so I parked here." Usually we just scoff and say that they were supposed to get a doctor's note for permission to park in someone else's lot. Unfortunately, someone finally did. It is outlined in the parking rules that you may park in handicapped spaces if you have a doctor's note. The weird thing was that they didn't park in handicapped spaces: They parked in WUTC lots. So what were we supposed to do? In the end they were all sustained, but it was really weird.

Vanishing Meals

It is the most mysterious thing. Today I am on campus all day starting at 9:00 a.m and ending at 10:00 p.m. I have classes, Parking Appeals Committee, and then RUF. So naturally I packed twice as much food for twice as many meals. But all four of my sandwiches are already gone and I'm still hungry. Grr. Fortunately, Alexie is coming back to campus for Classics Club and I have called home and requested that she pack a dinner for me. It's just so odd that my lunch disappears twice as fast on the day I need a meal for dinner. Sigh.

Genetically Engineered Pikachus

For Scientific Writing, our homework assignment is to find an article about bioengineering. The article I've actually found is about genetically modified mosquitoes, because the article about Pikachus wasn't actually an article, it was just a blog post about a guy selling engineered pikachus on an auction site. Still, I thought it was cool, although most speculation says that they are just mice with yellow make-up and a bit of rouge. I found the article while typing "Genetically Engineered Pigs" into the google search engine. Oh the things you can find on the internet!

I think we are all in agreement that it would be a lot more awesome to have more pikachus in this world than mosquitoes. Although rats that can send out electric shocks might become very destructive pests...

Banner Project

I got a UTC memo today which says, and I do not quote: "If you help us test this thing, we will give you priority registration for Fall 2010." This made my heart go PING!!! A~HA! No more being beaten out by honor students for me! I'm going to test this new Banner Project thing and I will have all the classes I want! I will have the best classes... IN THE WORLD!!! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Of course, it could be someone trying to hack my mocs account using my name and UTC ID or maybe UTC performing evil experiments to conquer the world using unsuspecting college students, but hey! This is Priority Registration we're talking about!!

Driving

Today Andrew is off to get his Driver's Permit. I asked Dad if I could get my license today, but the weather shut me down by icing all the roads. Curses. I don't think ice is all that dangerous and I could really impress my proctor by driving safely in dangerous conditions, but Dad would not hear it. Now Andrew and I will have our permits at the same time and I will have to suffer the inferiority complex of having a younger brother at the same stage of driving as I am. O me miseram!

Reasons Not To Like Snow

Ha ha. I love snow. But today I was thinking about a couple of things I don't like about snow:

1) It cancels everything. Bam. No Physics. No RUF. Nothing. It is so depressing. Now all I can do is work on my homework. That "Find a Scientific Magazine" assignment has turned out to be a boar. The section of the library my teacher advised us to search holds nothing but Scientific Journals with names like "The University of Nebraska's Coallition of Professors' Work on Abnormal Microbiology." Not only that, but the school library was closed by the snow. Groan.

2) There will invariably be someone who will loudly proclaim "What is everyone getting so worked up about! Back home in Michigan/New York/Canada the school wouldn't close for snow unless it was buried! And it certainly wouldn't close for this pathetic flurry!"
Although I tend to agree with them that flurries shouldn't stop the schools, I wish they would shut up.

3) When it snows, it is cold. I recently developed sores on my feet called "Chillblains." The name is far cooler than this ailment deserves. It makes your feet itch when you aren't touching them and scream bloody murder when you bump them against something or walk around campus. It also makes them swollen and purple. I hate the cold.

Back To School

Does anybody besides me have any problem with the first day of school being on a Wednesday? Being a rather compulsive person, I have this nagging buzz in my brain that says that this is not the way it should be. It has manifested in several ways including, but not limited to: Forgetting that today was Wednesday and thinking it was Monday, panicking and thinking that I've missed the first day of class, and wondering whether UTC Chemistry Labs policy is to skip the first Monday or to skip the first Week. This last one is a problem because I'm sure that if I don't show up to the Chemistry Labs on the right days, I'll be fired if I haven't already been fired and assuming that they hired me in the first place. (I'm not even sure that I have the job and I'm already worried about losing it.)

Not only that but I've only had two classes and I already have a load of homework: I have to find a scientific journal that uses academic language at a level that I can understand, create an index card outlining my writing strengths and weaknesses, and translate two pages of Latin. (I'll be done with all of this in about thirty minutes of actual work, but it never hurts to gripe!)