Feast Or Famine

Why is it that during the semester you either have a week where you are doing nothing or a week you are doing everything? Last week, everything became due at the same time. This is probably because last week was midterm week and since teachers seem to be as bad procrastinators as their students, all midterm papers and tests happened that week. This week, nothing happened. It was dull dull dull. Sure there was the standard homework, but there were no tests or papers due or anything. It was silence. Next week however, I have two tests: One on Tuesday and one on Thursday. I'm trying to get a jump on studying, but the Thursday test seems to be getting the short end of the stick. I'll probably be cramming on Wednesday, totally exhausted. Sigh.

Status Report

Big News: The modem at our house died. It was actually still alive, but we figured if we didn't get it into intensive care, it would kick the bucket any day now. Its characteristics were sluggishness and failure to operate. Therefore Dad took it in to be repaired.

Anyway, with the modem gone, we have no internet and no printer. (Our printer uses the internet to print. Wha?) Therefore I had to do all my homework that is due next week today. Typically, I do it on Saturday, kind of a last-day-of-the-week-time-to-get-the-ducks-in-a-row type sentiment, but with no modem, that becomes impossible. Anyways, I've done my Physics Homework, Physics Lab Homework, and Scientific Writing Powerpoint Presentation all in the past few hours, racing to fit it all in between classes, Parking committee, and RUF. But I finally got it all done. Phew. Good for Duncan.

Flos Duellatorum

Just for fun, I've been doing research on the crest-a-ma-bob that Heather brought into fencing yesterday. In case you didn't hear or weren't there, Heather dug up an ancient crest (turns out to be from the third oldest martial arts manuscript surviving) and showed it to us. There was a guy divided into seven sections, representing the seven guard positions, and in four sections there were animals: The lynx at the head, the tiger at the sword arm, the lion at the left arm, and the elephant at the feet. As Heather described it, the elephant was strength, the tiger was attack, the lion was defense, and the lynx was cleverness. Before you go any farther, I'll just say which people associated with which animals to give you a general idea of who associated with which characteristic:

Lynxes: Duncan, David, Matthew, Dylan, Kathryn, Grace, and Annie.
Elephants: Luke, Elliot, Aaron, Jacob, Michael
Tigers: Joseph, Connor, Oscar
Lions: Alex, William, Jared, Chris, Andrew V., Phillip

Just as an aside, the Lynxes won the huge battle. He he. Superior planning has always overcome superior force. (Yeah, I thought the Elephants were going to whoop up on everyone too, especially when they made an alliance with the Tigers.)

Oh yeah, now it is time to define what they really mean. I've read up on it and they are most literally fortitude, celerity, audacity, and prudence. Yeah, the lynx is "prudence." Sounds pretty lame right. Since it was translated from latin, I just counted it as a poor translation and changed it to "wisdom" or "intelligence." Oh yeah, as it turns out each animal has a motto that allows you to see exactly what sentiment they are representing:

Lynx: No other creature is able to see so clearly as me, the lynx, and by this I always reckon by compass and by measure
Tiger: I am the tiger. I am very quick to turn and run, that the arrow in the sky can never approach me.
Lion: None bears a more ardent heart than me, and I challenge anyone to battle.
Elephant: I am the Elephant and I have a castle for a burden. Never do I kneel down or lose my true place.

Just saying, the tiger has the wimpiest motto of all time. "I am very quick to turn and run"? Good luck selling that one to a fencer with an ounce of guts. The Lynx also doesn't seem incredibly manly to me. I suppose that's why our team was full of girls.

By the way, a long time ago I wrote a system of organizing fencers that is frightening similar to this and I've tried to apply the animals. Last summer David and I had a long talk about it and here's pretty much how it works: There are four types of fencers, Cunning, Aggressive, Defensive, and Direct. A cunning fencer is creative and uses disengages to defeat his opponent. He's like a baseball pitcher who uses nothing but breaking balls. An aggressive fencer attacks first and attacks repeatedly. A defensive fencer waits for his opponent's attack, parries, and then takes his attack. A direct fencer waits for an opening, and then attacks. I'd say if I apply the animals, Lynx would be cunning, Tiger would be aggressive, Lion would be defensive, and Elephant would be Direct.

Anyways, here's a summary:
Fiore Dei Liberi:
Lynx - A fencer with prudence, characterized by good point control and distance measurement
Tiger - A fencer with speed, characterized by keeping his distance and then moving in and out quickly after his attack
Lion - A fencer with courage, characterized by moving forward and relying on his bladework to defeat his opponent
Elephant - A fencer with endurance, characterized by good footwork and not wasting his energy

Heather:
Lynx - A fencer with intelligence, characterized by using disengages to defeat his opponent
Tiger - A fencer with ferocity, characterized by fast bladework
Lion - A fencer with skill, characterized by moving forward and relying on his bladework to defeat his opponent
Elephant - A fencer with strength, who attacks and doesn't need to fear his line of attack being broken. (As one author described using a pistol grip, he uses a hammer to do the work of a screwdriver.)

Duncan:
Lynx - A fencer with cunning, characterized by using disengages to defeat his opponent
Tiger - A fencer with ferocity, characterized by moving forward and attacking his opponent quickly and repeatedly
Lion - A fencer with patience, characterized by using a parry to open up a spot for attack
Elephant - A fencer with balance, characterized by using point control and footwork to exploit openings.

By the way, I'll put up a poll, just to see which one everyone likes best. If you stopped reading by the third paragraph because it was too much analysis, you don't need to vote.

Latin Midterm

Today we had the first Latin Midterm. There will be a second, but it will be 3/4 of the way through the course. I know. I know. It shouldn't be called a midterm if it isn't at midterms, but that is what it is called on the syllabus. Anyways, I can't really blame Dr. Davies for not giving us our midterm before midterm grades were due last Friday since he was dying of consumption all last week. Sick Semper Tyrannis, and all that jazz. I think I did very well on this final. I'm sure I made at least one careless mistake, but I'm fairly sure that I didn't make two.

Variables

Today's Physics class was a dizzying flurry of variables. We seem to have reached the point where the lecture is pretty much "alright, so if X/T = V and E=delta-V/delta-X, and you know that V=Ad, then how many different variables did you just represent with the single letter V?" The answer is 3, velocity, voltage, and volume. Yes, we have long since run out of letters in both our alphabet and the Greek alphabet. We have even used up all the capital letters of all letters in both alphabets. We have reached out limit. If that is the case, why does science still insist on naming so many variables!? Sometimes I get the feeling that scientists make up variables just so they can name the unit that goes with the variable after themselves!

Well guess what people, the root means squared of the number of electrons in a single area A over change in magnetic flux per unit second is now called the Collective Uselessness of the Data and is described in units of McPherson. Ha ha!

Planning Ahead

Last night, at about 9:00, I asked Andrew whether he was going to his friends' house the next day.
"Oh, I dunno. I haven't heard back from them," he replied.
"Hold on a minute! There is no way you are going to hear back from your friends before I go to school tomorrow at 8:00! They'll still be asleep!" I replied.
"Well, yeah," he said.
"Well, should I ask for a ride from Luke then? Or are they still sick so I should go home with Alexie?" I said.
"I dunno. I'll know tomorrow," he said.
This is not what I needed. I needed some information. As it turned out, Alexie figured that I was hitching a ride so she was going to leave without me without calling. Of course, it wouldn't make any difference because I discovered upon getting to school that Mom had borrowed my cell phone and never returned it. Great! Just when I need a communication route to both Alexie and Andrew, my cell phone goes missing! What good is a cell phone if it isn't around when you need it?

Anyway, I called home using the courtesy landline at UTC and got all pertinent information. Sheesh. So exhausting. I need to plan for communication crises better.

Ode to Emily

Today is Emily's birthday, so this post is all about her. I saw her for the first time at about noon because I was gone at Angel Food starting at 5:00 in the morning. Heather made a cake of a pink poodle out of a lamb-shaped cake mold. Pretty awesome, right? The reason it is a pink poodle is because Emily's Webkinz, which is a type of stuffed animal, is also a pink poodle and she loves it to death. Of course, that is in part because Webkinz have an online site where you play addictive online games with your digital Webkinz. Emily is always agitating to be allowed on the computer to play Webkinz. Since there are only two computers that are connected to the internet, she is typically ignored. That is, on days that aren't her birthday.

Squeaking By

I have all the midterm grades that I'm going to get back. It is scary: all my grades are right on the knife's edge. My Physics Test was offset by my homework and quizzes so I have an A. My Physics Lab reports have been for the most part too short so I have approximately 91 there. My Genetics Homework assignments have been high B's and low A's. My Genetics Test was a 92, so I have an A in that class too. Both the papers I've written for English class were B+, but because of all the extra credit I've done I have an A-. Right now I'm walking along the face of a very scary black precipice that is called 3.999 GPA.

P.S. Latin is a breeze. Hooray! Oh, but Dr. Davies cancelled today again. What the heck.

Oh oh oh

The last time I saw Dr. Davies in class, which was almost a week ago, he brought in a song in Latin "in honor of Valentine's day." It was just about the weirdest thing I ever heard. Dr. Davies apparently loves it. He played it three times in class and according to Alexie, he has done the same thing for every class he's ever had. It goes something like... Oh Oh Oh! Totus Floreo! Iam amore virginali totus ardeo! Novus novus novus amor est quo pereo! QUO PEREO! It only gets weirder if you try to translate it.

Latin Cancellation

This is the second class period in a row that Latin has been cancelled. I mean, it made sense two days ago when the entire campus shut down. Now, however, Dr. Davies is out with a cold or out fighting giant robots or something. Who knows what he does in his spare time? Anyway, I've had the same homework assignment for almost a week now and I finished it on Saturday. On his door, he left a note that said: Latin 102 cancelled. Study for mid-term! So I guess that's what I will be doing. Oh yeah, and finding seven more sources for my paper before Friday. Sigh...

Revenge of the Copper

Yesterday, I helped teach a Chemistry lab wherein we studied copper. The point of the lab was to measure your copper, mix it with a bunch of compounds, unmix it with a bunch of compounds, and then measure it again to see how much of it you lost. Strangely enough I had about a dozen pairs of students who came out with more copper than they started with. How can this be? It appears that we have nearly a dozen individual experiments that disprove the Law of the Conservation of Mass! How can people call it a law!? Wait! Maybe there are some extenuating factors... aha! The copper over time has gotten tired of being mixed and unmixed day in and day out and has evolved into a living organisms that reproduces through mitosis, like bacteria. Probably the reason they only multiply during experiments is because they need zinc to reproduce and they can't synthesize it themselves, being copper. A-ha! It all makes sense now. Watch out students, the copper is coming for you.

Oh no! How can I continue to live!?

Tragedy has struck! The fencing tournament I was going to on Saturday was... cancelled! AGH! I can't believe it! I've been looking forward to it since last semester! I am broken-hearted! I am crestfallen! This is the worst news I've received since I found that all my Monday classes were cancelled for snow! Now how am I supposed to turn in my "Interview!?" Gaaah! The only comfort now is the tournament on Wednesday. If that gets cancelled, I'll be really upset.

Weekend Snow

Hey, is it just me or does it invariably snows on the weekends? Seriously, it starts Friday afternoon and melts sometime on Saturday or Sunday. I think UTC paid whoever controls the snow not to make it snow during the week so no more classes are cancelled. Or maybe there is a really boring awful class on Friday afternoon that whoever controls the snow wants cancelled. That's probably the more likely one.

Fencing Rules

For the tournament next week I'm planning to compile some standards to go by for right of way and stuff like that. That way if conflicts arise, we'll settle them quickly. Unfortunately, standards just tend to make people feel bitter after they finish their match and find in such and such a rulebook section 5 that such and such does not establish right of way after all. I mean, after you've lost, you've lost. What good is it to find out whether you should have won!? Blagh.

Anyway, between that and trying to find 15 sources for my paper due next week (current # of sources: 0), I'm so bushed. It is exhausting.

Oughton...

...

My brain just exploded.

I've been searching for a translation of Triachasis Admiranda and this one name keeps cropping up: Chuck Oughton. First I found a series of lectures that mentioned Triachasis Admiranda. I thought I had lucked out. I even e-mailed the link to myself hoping to mine more information. Alas, it was only the teaser that was put online. Utah State, a series of graduate students sharing information with each other, History - Charles Oughton. Talking about his translation of Triachasis Admiranda. I was so jipped. Later, I was reading an article about two guys in Utah translating Triachasis Admiranda, one latin professor and one graduate student. When I got to the bottom and saw that the paper was published by a newspaper in Utah, I suddenly remembered the flyer that had tormented me with so little information. A-ha! This Oughton guy might be the key.

I googled him and you'd never believe what came up.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/368542/any-questions-on-rules

A how-to forum on how to play Killer Bunnies. This nice guy was explaining to everyone how to play Killer Bunnies (I mean... WHAT!?) and then finished by saying that anyone who got too upset was taking the game too seriously. It was trippy. Anyway, the guy on the forum is from Utah so I think he's the same guy. Other games he's rated include Bang, Powergrid, and Catan. He owns just about every extension of Killer Bunnies, Bang, and Catan I've never heard of. It is incredible.

So what is this super awesome Latin-translating history grad student who has all the answers to all the questions I have doing on some random geek gaming site which would be my guilty pleasure if I knew it existed!? AAAAH! Hey, let's see if we invite him to random fun he would let me have a gander at Triachasis Admiranda.

Not just any Tumors!!

Teratomas!!!

If you want a boring description, Teratomas are tumors that have tissues that are normally derivatives of any of the germ layers. Here's the cool description: They're tumors that have teeth and hair!!! AND EYES!! AND BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINS!! (in rare instances, of course.) Yeah, teratomas are bloody awesome. I know that most of you, i.e. all my readers who aren't Luke K, are thinking Eeeeew, why would Duncan want to do a report on something so inherently sick. (Of course, I'm not going to make statements for Luke and he can be perfectly disgusted if he wants to be.)

Mom is bent on changing my mind. I come home and she says "Duncan, when I was in dietary school I studied this really fascinating disorder called PHP (disclaimer: doesn't actually exist. I forgot whatever it was that Mom said.) that causes weight loss! Pretty exciting, right?" Yeah, well a teratoma is definitely cooler. Mom also suggested ulcers, but I vetoed that one because ulcers are the example used over and over in my textbook for the class. Anyway, ulcers are cool, sure, but teratomas are cooler. Alexie gave me some manly advice that she got from a friend: I'd rather write an F paper on something I find interesting than an A paper on something I find dull.

Of course, I totally intend to get an A in this paper.

Hmm... Any more posts on teratomas and I might have to get them their own label.

First Quarter

Well, the first battle is over. I'm a quarter of the way through the semester and I have achieved fairly good grades through a series of miracles. Here are some areas I still need to work on:

1. Turning reports in on time. (Phys Lab)
2. Making papers longer (Phys Lab + Science Writing)
3. More studying before tests (Physics, and probably Genetics too)

Now I'm going to delve into teratomas for my paper due next friday. Although teratomas are super awesome cool, some of the information on them is neither easy to read or easy to get a hold of. Oh yeah, the Armawhatzit chirgiwhatever was actually written by a second guy with the same name, Johannes Sceltetus. The Johannes Sceltetus who was the first doctor to document a teratoma wrote a paper called Trichiasis Admiranda, which means "The Amazing Hairy Monster." Unfortunately it is in Latin, there's no translation, and there are only ten copies in existence, most of which are kept in Paris. America has two: One is in Harvard and one is in the National Library of Medicine in Maryland, so it doesn't look like I'll be getting a gander at it any time soon.

Teratomas

In one week I'm supposed to have fifteen sources on a topic that I haven't picked yet. Recently I selected teratomas as my subject so today I began searching in earnest for sources. Oh yeah, these can't be any sources, they have to be "pioneering" sources. Each source has to show a different milestone for whatever my topic is. OK. Whatever, I shrugged. I typed in "first teratoma" in google search. There was nothing about the first teratoma. I have a bunch of new milestones: First cystic teratoma, first teratoma in males, first teratoma in muscle, teratoma riding his first bike (kidding, kidding), etc. No first teratoma.

After refining my searches a bazillion times, I discovered the name of the person to detail the first teratoma. The problem was that nobody had any idea how to spell it. Johannes Scholz, Johan Scultata, Johans Schultz, etc. It made searching for him very difficult. I also discovered the name of his book: Armamentarium chirurgicum. There are two problems: The book was originally in German, and there is no place online to find free information about it. The original source would be ideal but, since it is a book, it costs money and that is a pain. Also I'm still not 100% sure whether "Armamentarium chirurgicum" is the book that contains information on the first teratoma or whether J.S. wrote a book about some stuff and then published a lab report about a teratoma he found later. O me miserum!!

Curves

You know, I've never really cared about the existence of grade curves. They never really mattered. Ever. I'd get an 'A' and then after the curve, I would have an 'A'. Today in Physics I learned the importance of curves.

For example, if your test only has four questions and you run out of time before you have time to address one, you will probably get a very bad score, theoretically a 29.75/40. Gasp! You're thinking '73% is a C! AAAH!' But A-ha! What if, theoretically, the rest of the class sucked worse? What if the class average was 19/40! Then A-ha! Your score is suddenly and magically a 90.5%.

Guess what! That theory is a reality! Who could have guessed! My Physics teacher was extremely steamed and spent the first fifty minutes of class going over the first question on the test. (One which I got perfectly right.) Anyway, I have resolved that I will NEVER EVER get a score that bad on a test again. Failing this test has taught me more than passing all the other tests has combined. The silver lining is that it didn't matter that I failed the test: POWER TO THE CURVES! I get all the benefit of failing combined with all the benefit of passing the class! Yay!

Ethics...?

On Friday, we are having an in-class writing assignment on "ethics." Dr. Jackson made it sound like we'd be selecting some sort of controversial topic and writing on it. Oh no... Anyway, she told us to read chapter 9, "Ethics and Scientific Communication" to prepare. I read it. It was all about Professional Ethics, as in honesty in reporting and not messing up your statistics on purpose to skew data one direction. That's a totally different type of ethics! So what kind of ethics are we supposed to be writing on, Social or Professional!? O me miserum...

Fix-A-Flat

On Saturday, Carlock came down with a flat. (Carlock is the name of Alexie's car. She named it.) I was busy shooting the neighbor's kids (Bang!) when Dad called me and told me that today was the day I was going to learn to fix a flat.
Dad: Now, pay close attention Duncan. First shake this can of Fix-A-Flat vigorously (he demonstrates) and attach it the wheel. Then press this button.
We stared at the can for a while as it made noise like someone trying really hard to hold his breath.
Dad: Duncan, does it look like it's going in?
Duncan: Oh, sure Dad. (It wasn't, but hey. It was my first time. How should I know what fix-a-flat stuff going through a tube should look like?)
Dad: Hmm...
Dad then decided to take the tube off the tire and that was when the can erupted. Yellow fix-a-flat stuff was splurting out both the end of the tube and the base of the tube. Dad kept trying to reattach it, but it was too late. After all the air and all the chemical was out of the can, Dad depressedly stared at the mess of yellow goop all over Carlock's front tire and the garage floor.
If I were Thomas Edison, I would say, "It's not that I failed to learn how to fix a flat tire, it is that I learned one way not to fix a flat tire!"
Although... I still don't know exactly what was keeping the fix-a-flat foam from going through the tube...

Practice MCAT

Two nights ago I performed the practice MCAT. My results surprised me: My score for Physical Sciences (Physics and Chemistry) was twice my score for Biological Sciences (Biology and OChem). Dad pointed out that this was probably because I only took half of my biological sciences courses so far. However, I am amazed that I even got what I did on biology. I only knew the answers to two of the seventy questions: the one on directional selection and the one about genetics. (I had actually just done a question just like that one earlier that day. He he.) Somehow all the biology that was talked about in the MCAT was completely missing from my general biology course. I feel totally cheated. What I need to take is some sort of enzyme course and some cellular biology before I take the MCAT. I will probably take this into account when planning my actual schedule for next semester.

Crusty Computer

Right now I'm sitting at the internet computer at home that no one uses. There are two computers that access the internet, both in Mom's room. Sometimes when Mom doesn't want to go to the trouble of using the other computer, she uses this one. Since it doesn't load websites, she quickly gives up. Recently, she called Alexie and Andrew down to take a look at the computer and figure out why the internet is running so slowly. Both of them had no idea what was going on and moaned endlessly about their uselessness. (Teenagers tend to plead ignorance whenever their parents want them to work. I know since I am one.) They aren't scientists, you see, rocket or otherwise.

Any good scientist, or any person with an ounce of logic, would have noticed that the internet will work if you are logged in to the username Teaching Tools, but not if you are logged into David. The reason? The username David has dozens of viruses and updater agents running every second you are logged in. The viruses don't slow down the computer because of sinister design, they slow it down because there are so many of them clogging up the computer's circuits. The reason I know this is when I log off of "David" so that I can use the internet, half a dozen programs with names like "BLGOFGupdateragent.exe" and "COMPUTERAIDS.exe" all have problems shutting down and so therefore each pop up errors that require you to press "end now" to move through them all. If I were trying to fix the problem, I'd start there. It is a problem when your computer is so old, even its viruses are decrepit.

So depressed

Today I got my first paper back in Scientific Writing. Where there should have been a grade, I got a little sentence that said "see me." What happened was that I did not have enough pages, therefore my paper was no good. Fortunately, the grading system works in that you only get your grades from the finished product. You turn it in to your teacher, she hands it back, you hand it back in at mid-term, then you get your actual grade. This is very depressing because my last two Physics Lab reports also had points taken off for being too short. The problem is that Physics Reports are always assigned Wednesday and are always due Friday. I literally wrote my most recent paper and my Physics Report yesterday in the one hour between Parking Appeals and the practice MCAT. This new paper isn't due until Monday so Saturday is going to be a day of Maximum Overhaul.

But this is a new revelation for me: I always thought my problem was that I was too wordy. Now the glove is on the other foot!

Unwelcome Love

I was working on my Physics Report and my appetite in the computer lab when I received a call from my Dad.
"Hey ho buddy! Heather has made a delicious dinner especially for you so if you want to come home, you may!"
Now, I knew that if I left campus, I wasn't coming back. Naturally I declined. The only problem being that I was extremely and ravishingly hungry and all I had to eat were two sandwiches with peanut butter that had gone bad that morning. (I knew it had since the one I ate before my Genetics Test tasted really funny.) Unfortunately, knowing that there is good food somewhere only makes bad food taste worse. I'm going to have to eat these monstrocities at some point, but I'm holding off because I hear that hunger is the best sauce. I'm trying to drown the sandwiches in it.

Oh yeah, my Physics Report still sucks and it is only one page long. The last two reports have had points taken off for being too short so I literally copied the same sentence and pasted it 12 times with all my different results plugged in. (You do the same experiment twelve times in this lab. Oh the pain.) Yes, even with all that it is still only a single page long. AAAH!

Study Strategy

You should try this sometime: To study for your test, program a program that will generate questions for you that you think will be on the test. After the test, you'll probably be very angry because your program didn't prep you properly, but whatever. Make any necessary adjustments. At the end of the semester, as you study for your cumulative final, open your program and relearn the stuff. I've done this once for Chemistry 122, and I think that was the most helpful of all my study strategies, since you get the benefit of teaching and learning. I'm going to repeat this with Genetics, and hopefully I'll be able to use it to up my Physics grade.

Banner Schedule

Hmm. Probably no one cares about this, but I am going to post my fake schedule anyway. It is a pretty good indicator of what I want to take in the fall. I want to tweak it a bit so I have at least one class on Tuesday and Thursday. I'll probably drop Ecology if the only section crosses Random Fun so take this as a tentative "Hey! Check out this fake schedule!" type thing.

Tuesday-Thursday:
...nothing. Gotta fix that.

Monday-Wednesday-Friday:
8:00: O-Chem with Dr. Mebane. Yes, I know how everyone out there hates 8:00 classes and if Megan says she absolutely refuses to have a class at 8:00, I'll change sections to be with her. But according to just about everyone, Mebane is the person to take. He is the head of the O-Chem teachers so taking with him is a pretty big honor. That's probably why he scheduled his classes at 8:00.

9:00: Logic, Language, and Evidence with Dr. Plaisted. I know Dr. Santiago told us not to pile on a bunch of random classes we don't need, but I think a college-level grasp on Logic will be a really big help in the verbal reasoning section of the MCATs. Not only that, it is with Dr. Plaisted. Double plus!

10:00: Ecology with Dr. Boyd. She seems like a liberal nutter and the only lab section available is on Friday during Random Fun so it will probably fall through. Otherwise, I like it. Ecology is a fascinating topic, when not done too Democratically, and it fulfills the "Ecology and Evolution" requirement. It sounds more interesting and less controversial than "Evolution," "Systematics," and "Biodiversity," that's for sure.

11:00: Bio-ethics with Dr. Plaisted. It is the most fascinating course that fills my remaining FA/HU, and since it is only offered in the fall, I want to hop on it. And it is with Dr. Plaisted AGAIN. Woo hoo. Another double plus! Do you think medical schools would be impressed by a recommendation from a Philosophy teacher?

12:00: LUNCH!! LEAVE IT OPEN, BABY!

1:00: Ecology Lab on Friday. Boo hiss. Last semester they opened another surprise section for Ecology so I'm hoping they'll do the same thing this semester so I won't have to choose between Ecology and Random Fun.

2:00: O Chem Lab on Monday. I could put this on Tuesday at 8:00, but I have no real preference. I'm just going to follow my friends' leads on this one.

That about wraps it all up! Now that you are all bored stiff, what do you think?

... Shoot.

Groan. I am currently overcome by a vast depression. Today is the first time in my entire life that I have run out of time on a test. I was so ashamed. I was furiously scribbling away at the last question when my Physics Teacher said "This is my first call for papers." Since I didn't want to be thought of as the kind of student who ignores his teacher and finishes his test anyway I handed it in. Alexie said that whenever she hands hers in unfinished she gets a 'B' so that is probably what I'm going to get. Siiiiiiiigh... Perhaps if I hadn't taken so long to remember Kirkhoff's law during the last question... or maybe if my calculator hadn't been acting up during the first question. Alas. All is vanity.

Groundhog Day... 2!

Recently I wrote a blog post about Feb. 2. Hoorah. It's today. My Physics test was pushed back so it is today. I discovered I have a Genetics test today, until it was pushed back as well. The pro-life club meeting isn't happening. I think the Lacrosse meeting will be overcome by the Pre-Med society meeting... unless Alexie doesn't drive me to school at all. If that happens, I'll miss fencing as well. *blubber*

Also... BANNER! WOO HOO! Right now I'm in the library waiting for the clock to strike ten so I can pretend to sign in to classes. Hooray~! I am going to sign in to the best classes. :D

Slippers

You know, I've never had slippers before. Until yesterday, of course. After Mom had detailed the plight of my poor feet and their beloved chillblains, Grandma went shopping the next morning. When she got home she dropped a pair of slippers at my feet and told me to put them on. The good thing about my slippers is that they keep my feet warm and make me feel comfortable. The bad thing about them is that shuffling around my house to make sure my slippers don't fall off makes me feel like an old man. I guess I'll just have to deal with it. It's better than losing circulation in my feet.

Trapped

It is just as well that we didn't have Random Fun last Friday. If we had, it would probably have resulted in our friends becoming trapped by the snow. The road in our neighborhood was completely iced within a few hours. We couldn't even get to Wal-Mart. Our out-of-town relatives were planning to arrive Friday and leave Sunday. They left this morning. Not only that, but the roads in Jacksonville (a dinky little town they have to pass through) are closed so they have to go down to Atlanta and then up to Raleigh to get home. Alas for circuitous routes. Now we are just praying that they don't get trapped in Atlanta.