| Look at me still talking, while there's science to do... |
[20 Apr 2008|02:26am] |
Exams approaching, and I'm still grossly underprepared for both of them. Fan-freaking-tastic. The plan, though, is to lock myself in the Dude with one of my friends for the next two days, so here's hoping that'll pay off.
Half of the furniture is gone from my apartment - my couch is gone, my rug is, and my microwave is now taking up half of the space on my kitchen table. I didn't want to move all of that crap yet, but seeing as my family came up today I didn't have much say in the matter beyond locking the door and hiding in my bathroom. Something tells me that wouldn't have cut it.
I went out to dinner tonight with some of my friends; Steak and Shake's burgers could use thicker patties, but the shake was as godlike as always. We ended up playing Rock Band for a few hours, and I thoroughly humiliated myself by trying to sing. There are a few songs I think I did okay on (like "Wanted: Dead or Alive"), but that wasn't enough to counteract the bad. Lessons learned tonight:
1.) "Creep" was easy...up until the falsetto in the middle of the song. Once I got to that, I started tanking because I couldn't hit the pitch...but then my voice cracked and started to waver like mad, and my rating actually went up, from "weak" to "awesome." Apparently, emulating Thom Yoke to that level paid off, even though it was completely unintentional.
2.) ""Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld." That was a unique combination of pain and hilarity. Somehow, I made it through the song and kept a (mostly) straight face, even while yelling lyrics like "Pah Yup Pah Dub Dub" and "Dappit Gul Hod."
I also heard "Stay Alive" for the first time tonight; I'd been avoiding it because I haven't been able to play Portal yet (I need a better laptop, or an Xbox 360). Mike and Marc both played it, though, and I'm in love with the song. I was already a huge fan of Jonathan Coulton, but this is already one of my favorites from him - the lyrics are amazing, and the song is hilarious, and will probably be even more so once I can actually play the game.
Seriously, this song is nothing short of amazing. It's right up there with the genius of "Code Monkey" and "Mandelbrot Set."
Also, while searching YouTube for videos that use "Stay Alive," I found her. A girl who's nerdy enough to sing Portal's theme song and Rick Astley? I think I'm in love. 0_0
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[16 Apr 2008|01:06am] |
Looking through my LiveJournal friends feed, through the one or two MySpace pages I actually look at from time to time, and at my Facebook news feed, I always seem to end up at the same conclusion:
Either we're all broken, or we're a lot more neurotic and insecure than I'd ever realized.
A page-long list of OCD rituals and quirks. Lengthy posts about college, and fears and insecurities about classes we'll probably pass but are close enough to the borderline where failure becomes an encompassing fear. Relationships coming and going, with the only marker of change being whether the little pink heart Facebook puts next to the bullet point is broken or not.
The status updates on Facebook are particularly bad - one line isn't a ton of room, but the amount of angst and fear that can be compressed into it is amazing, judging from what I've seen in the past few weeks.
I guess that's an inevitable part of all of these social networking sites, but I can't help but feel that, as we let bits and pieces of our private lives slide into view a few words at a time, the intimate knowledge we're all going to have of each other is going to change a lot of relationships and friendships. Not necessarily for the worse, but this is something that no other generation has had. This is a subtle but fundamental shift in the way we're going to know each other, and the repercussions of that are anyone's guess.
I'd like to say that everyone else has realized it and that I'm just late to the party, but given that I keep getting invited to join a Facebook group based off of a ten year old chain e-mail...well, let's just say that, right now, I'm feeling smarter than the average bear.
Okay. That's enough "let's pretend I'm an LSA student so I can write pseudo-philosophical papers" crap for the night.
Update on the past while or so coming soon, but here's the Cliffs Notes version:
-I haven't been able to feel my lower lip for two days now
-I need to finish an internship applications that's due...um, today. Crap.
-Exams are coming up next week. I've got two on Tuesday, half an hour apart, across North Campus from each other, and for my hardest classes. LIFE HATES ME.
-I still need a job for the summer.
-Even though they're almost identical to Altoids, the mints I got for Christmas in a tin shaped like an NES controller are surprisingly good.
-I need a haircut so I don't look like a hobo.
I think that covers most of the important points for now. I need to go to bed, because whether I like it or not I'm getting up at 9AM to finish this stupid application. I don't think I've got any chance at all of getting the internship, but that'll be self-fulfilling if I don't send anything to them.
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[08 Apr 2008|07:17am] |
Urgh.
Exam in about an hour.
I don't know how much sleep I got last night, but I know it feels like I laid in bed for at least an hour (though it's hard to tell because I forced myself to stop clock-watching after a little while at the beginning). That usually means "not nearly enough."
Caffeine, save me!
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[24 Mar 2008|03:07pm] |
Top 5 Reasons It Sucks to Be an Engineering Student
Yes, they're generalizations, but this does a pretty good job of summing up college so far. I've experienced everything on this list at least once (and most of them multiple times) in the past three years.
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[18 Mar 2008|11:02pm] |
This song describes my life perfectly right now, if you replace "coal mine" with...um, apartment. Maybe "Duderstadt Center," but that doesn't flow with the rest of the lyrics.
The fact that it's easier to find a song as a YouTube video than it is to dig up an MP3 of it is a sign of how much things have changed in the past few years.
In the next week or so, I've got three papers, an internship fair, an exam, and all of my usual homework on top of that. JOY.
But on the other hand, I've got pie, there's a lot of albums coming out in the next few weeks I'm looking forward to (Panic at the Disco, the Counting Crows, the Raconteurs, and the new version of Tally Hall's album...fear my questionable taste in music), and I've still got the occasional Smash Brothers break to take my mind off of work. Things could be worse...but they'd be a heck of a lot better without all of this work.
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[18 Mar 2008|01:41am] |
I spent all day Sunday on one homework assignment.
I had class all day, and then spent four hours scrubbing dishes alone in the back of Bursley's kitchen. It got so bad that my boss (Chuck, for the two or three of you that know him) spent an hour helping me because we were so busy that, even after three years of practice with the job, I couldn't handle the amount of dishes they sent back on my own.
I've spent the past hour trying to figure out why the Maple file I need for my lab tomorrow morning won't open, and cursing the fact that my lab partner's got appendicitis and has been incommunicado for the past few days because of it.
And on top of all of that, my glasses are currently locked in an office in Bursley, which means I've got a huge headache brewing, which will be made all the worse by the fact that I'm getting up at 6:30 tomorrow morning.
I love my life. >_<
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| Three things: |
[10 Mar 2008|03:57am] |
1.) Super Smash Brothers Brawl rocks.
2.) I'm a bit disappointed that, after seven hours, I haven't unlocked Sonic yet.
3.) It's 4AM. I need to go to bed. >_
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[19 Feb 2008|10:02pm] |
So I've got a Thermo exam tomorrow.
The GSI pretty much flat out told us that one of the problems is going to be a chemical equilibrium problem.
We've done one of those in class.
The professor started talking about it with half an hour left on class on Monday, and didn't actually start the example until after class had ended (and then ran about ten minutes over schedule).
The one example we have is wrong.
This exam is going to be a freaking blast. Why did I think that engineering was a good idea, again?
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| I'm older than I've ever been, and now I'm even older. AND NOW I'M EVEN OLDER. |
[05 Nov 2007|12:20am] |
I'm 21 now...but it sure doesn't feel like it.
I've got a quiz in Aero 325 in about nine hours. Good thing it's for extra credit only.
This is going to be the first year where I don't actually see my family on my birthday, which feels odd to think about. Unless plans fall through, though, I'll be going out for dinner with some of my friends so I don't have to spend the night eating frozen ravioli alone. That's a pretty good compromise, if you ask me.
I've got a lot on my mind right now, but since I've got that quiz and an essay to finish revising, I guess I should get back to work. I love you too, college.
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[12 Oct 2007|12:43am] |
One more exam, and some quick editing of my Aero 385 paper (emphasis on the quick; apparently, I can still write well when I need to). After that...well, work. But after that, a few precious days of freedom before I come back up on Monday and jump back into homework.
Exams haven't gone nearly as well as I wanted, but I'm still thinking I might reward myself a bit for having not completely failed the four. The last time I was in Target, I noticed they had Abbey Road for ten bucks, and I don't have a copy of that album yet... >_>
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