In one of the classes I’m taking, my Professor said something today which, frankly, made no sense. The grades on the midterm are based on what everyone else got, so essentially you are in direct competition with those around you. That means that the top twenty five percent of the class gets an a, regardless of the actual percentages people get. While I personally dislike this sort of grading, I’m not going to make a big deal out of it. The part that got under my skin, though, was that she generously decided to grant everyone an additional seventeen percent on the midterm. What I don’t get is why she’s bothering--it won’t actually change anyone’s grades at all. I think perhaps she didn’t think it all the way through.
I’m a little shocked that I’m doing so well in physics this quarter, but the real surprise is that I’m enjoying it so much. Math is, shock surprise, fun. I think I’ll cut way back on the number of fluff classes I take from now on.
The store that I work at is closing soon, and I’ve noticed something that at first seemed very strange. As soon as the “Store Closing” sign went up, the number of customers who are very rude went up sharply. Suddenly, people are leaving candy wrappers and soda bottles all over the place, they’re miss-shelving things, and refusing to make eye-contact or say please or thank you. I actually watched a woman take a pack of stickers down off a rack, look at them for a moment and literally drop them on the floor and walk away. Now, I’m not wildly irritated about all of this, but I do think it’s very interesting. It doesn’t offend me personally that these people are now treating me like I’m an idiot (because of the sign?) because I know that I’m not stupid, but it does make me want to ask why they’re doing it. I doubt that would go over particularly well, though, so perhaps I’ll stick with internal sighs and outward smiles.
I got a new coat, and it’s fabulous. I didn’t realize that wearing an actual coat, made of wool, is so, so much warmer than wearing a cotton-blend hoodie. It’s amazing. Walking to class at seven thirty in the morning, I am no longer just not dead, I’m actually warm. I put my hands in my pockets, and they’re warm too! Toasty.
My earrings keep getting caught in the scarf I’m wearing today, and it is very unpleasant.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Screamin' Petals
Haven’t updated, no excuses, blah-blah-blah.
My dad caught the evil awful cold I had for six solid weeks. It was one of those ones that slammed you back and forth between being hot and cold and energetic and dead. It was not a fun illness to have. My dad has it now, though, and while normally he’s pretty stoic about illness, shunning medicine and all of that, he finally got his foot surgery scheduled, and since he’s been waiting for that since before we found out who was going to be the new President, he’s reluctant to let a cold force them to reschedule. So, he’s been acting like a big baby about the whole thing (which is completely understandable and not the point). This morning when I came downstairs, he was attacking one of those little blister packs of cold pills with an eight inch kitchen knife. When I said something like, “Whuuh?” He glared at me, brandished the knife at the pills and said, “Why do they make them so hard to open when the people that’ll be trying to open them are sick? It makes no sense!” I couldn’t argue with that.
I watched an unemployed homeless man with five foster children pick up a woman yesterday, and I’m still in awe of his skills. (On that topic, though, I wonder just how an unemployed homeless man has five foster children—not with him, he just mentioned them—I mean; you wouldn’t think the state would allow that).
I was mildly disappointed to learn that the Frankie in the love song Frankie and Johnny was a woman. I mean, it’s an older country song, so of course she is, but when I saw the title and heard the opening line, I felt a moment of surprised excitement that was quickly quashed by the chorus. Still, it shouldn’t take too much lyrical reworking to fix the injustice.
My boyfriend has been making the most beautiful jewelry. I’m so wildly impressed with what he’s been doing. I can’t believe that he just started doing it recently. We were at the craft store, and he goes, “I’m going to get some wire and some beads and start making jewelry.” I said, “That’s nice dear.” I thought he was going to basically take the wire and throw the beads on it, and be like, “Ta-da!” What he did was so much more impressive than that. I’ll get his permission later and throw the link to his etsy account up here, so that the one person other than me who reads this can go see what I’m talking about. Seriously, this stuff’s gorgeous.
Speaking of gorgeous, I saw a really beautiful sunset the other night and it’s still making me happy. Also topping my list of things that made me way happier than they really ought to have are the two canceled classes I have NOT going on this week, and the motivation I’m feeling to really do better in the second half of this quarter than I’ve done so far. I think I’m hitting the tail end of that evil cold, and I’m getting my second wind, so to speak. It isn’t that I’m doing all that poorly; I’m just not really applying myself the way I ought to be. That will change, though, and I’ll start emulating those people in my life who do so much better than me at everything with the exception of scraping by with the minimum effort (and perhaps baking pound cake).
I also learned that I have not grown out of being terrified by haunted houses. I went to a theme park with my boyfriend rather than watching that super-huge football game people seem to care so much about, and went into the haunted house they had and I screamed so much that the small child of approximately six years old looked back at me as if to say, “Please, lady, shuuut up!” He was completely incredulous. On the plus side, I did get everyone laughing, and that felt good.
There are these trees on campus that bloom in late January/early February, and they smell so, so awful. 100% of people polled agree with me.
I asked two people.
My dad caught the evil awful cold I had for six solid weeks. It was one of those ones that slammed you back and forth between being hot and cold and energetic and dead. It was not a fun illness to have. My dad has it now, though, and while normally he’s pretty stoic about illness, shunning medicine and all of that, he finally got his foot surgery scheduled, and since he’s been waiting for that since before we found out who was going to be the new President, he’s reluctant to let a cold force them to reschedule. So, he’s been acting like a big baby about the whole thing (which is completely understandable and not the point). This morning when I came downstairs, he was attacking one of those little blister packs of cold pills with an eight inch kitchen knife. When I said something like, “Whuuh?” He glared at me, brandished the knife at the pills and said, “Why do they make them so hard to open when the people that’ll be trying to open them are sick? It makes no sense!” I couldn’t argue with that.
I watched an unemployed homeless man with five foster children pick up a woman yesterday, and I’m still in awe of his skills. (On that topic, though, I wonder just how an unemployed homeless man has five foster children—not with him, he just mentioned them—I mean; you wouldn’t think the state would allow that).
I was mildly disappointed to learn that the Frankie in the love song Frankie and Johnny was a woman. I mean, it’s an older country song, so of course she is, but when I saw the title and heard the opening line, I felt a moment of surprised excitement that was quickly quashed by the chorus. Still, it shouldn’t take too much lyrical reworking to fix the injustice.
My boyfriend has been making the most beautiful jewelry. I’m so wildly impressed with what he’s been doing. I can’t believe that he just started doing it recently. We were at the craft store, and he goes, “I’m going to get some wire and some beads and start making jewelry.” I said, “That’s nice dear.” I thought he was going to basically take the wire and throw the beads on it, and be like, “Ta-da!” What he did was so much more impressive than that. I’ll get his permission later and throw the link to his etsy account up here, so that the one person other than me who reads this can go see what I’m talking about. Seriously, this stuff’s gorgeous.
Speaking of gorgeous, I saw a really beautiful sunset the other night and it’s still making me happy. Also topping my list of things that made me way happier than they really ought to have are the two canceled classes I have NOT going on this week, and the motivation I’m feeling to really do better in the second half of this quarter than I’ve done so far. I think I’m hitting the tail end of that evil cold, and I’m getting my second wind, so to speak. It isn’t that I’m doing all that poorly; I’m just not really applying myself the way I ought to be. That will change, though, and I’ll start emulating those people in my life who do so much better than me at everything with the exception of scraping by with the minimum effort (and perhaps baking pound cake).
I also learned that I have not grown out of being terrified by haunted houses. I went to a theme park with my boyfriend rather than watching that super-huge football game people seem to care so much about, and went into the haunted house they had and I screamed so much that the small child of approximately six years old looked back at me as if to say, “Please, lady, shuuut up!” He was completely incredulous. On the plus side, I did get everyone laughing, and that felt good.
There are these trees on campus that bloom in late January/early February, and they smell so, so awful. 100% of people polled agree with me.
I asked two people.
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