Random day in the life of me

I currently live in a second story apartment with cats, fish, snakes, frogs, and a turtle. It is great fun, especially when the cats go out on the balcony and jump to the neighbor's balcony and won't come back.

Today I taught Cassie how to crochet, that was fun because I like crocheting. I also took a 10 minute power nap before work and drooled a lot on my pillow during it.

I am taking two PE classes this quarter: bowling and archery. Today we learned how to throw a bowling ball properly and practiced about 50 times without a ball, then I got to throw and actual ball down the lane about 5 times. Tomorrow I will go to archery and have fun shooting stuff (maybe).

I am also taking 3 engineering classes. They seem difficult, but I can do it!

I am going to go water my tomatoes now. I love tomatoes. And ginger tea!

2008

It's 2008. Exciting! I haven't posted here in a while. What's happened since April, hmm... Well, I moved twice; from Drake to this crappy house with a crappy landlord, then from there to the apartment in which I live now. I like it here. It's close to campus which is definitely nice, and right on the edge of downtown. It's even better now that the guy upstairs moved out and doesn't play his loud music 24/7 anymore.

Winter quarter just started and I'm taking 4 engineering classes. All my classes are on Mondays and Wednesdays, which is kinda nice, but my Mondays and Wednesdays are LONG. It wreaks havoc on my knees, just sitting stationary for so long. I'll have to remedy that somehow.

On Tuesday I went to meet a family about babysitting, since I have 5 days with no classes this quarter. They liked me, so I'm going to be babysitting for them 3 days a week, and for another family one day a week. The new family asked me to get a flu shot, so I'm going to go do that in about 20 minutes, and I plan on selling my books back while I'm on campus. I have a ton of books to sell back, so hopefully I'll get a fair amount for them.

Chemistry Test

I took my chemistry midterm on Friday and I was stuck on the last problem for a while. I tried a bunch of different ways but I couldn't get a right answer. I finally figured it out and started writing it out but then the proctor called time. I wrote out everything except the last step and the final answer and he came and took my test. Turns out that if I had been able to finish that problem I would have gotten the highest grade in the class. Oh well, I got a good grade regardless.

Bruises and buses

When I was taking off my sweatshirt at work the other day I realized I had a huge bruise on the outer part of my left upper arm. I didn't know what it was from, but that's kinda weird, right? I realized later what it was from. I was riding the bus to school the other day and the driver had to stop really fast. I was sitting in a seat that had a space between me and the one next to me, and the one next to me had a hard plastic armrest. When the bus stopped, I went flying forward into said armrest (and the guy who was sitting in that seat), landing on the part of my arm just under my left shoulder. The rest of my arm went between the seats, so I landed completely on that part of my arm. That definitely explains why there is a bruise there. That experience was not exactly what I would call one of my most graceful moments.

New Quarter

So this quarter I'm only taking three classes. I have to take a math class over that I didn't do so well in last quarter (I blame the professor), and I'm taking the next in the physics series, and a really crappy ethnic studies class that I thought would count for GE credit, but actually doesn't. Good news is that I'm taking it pass/fail so I can slack off a lot and not have to worry about getting a good grade.

I'm also getting over the flu, which is kind of really annoying. I had a fever for a few days and missed all of my classes at least once, which is sort of bad but I really couldn't go to class how I was feeling. My head is still all clogged up and I'm sure I'm getting a sinus infection, but that's not out of the ordinary.

Major Change

Right now I'm taking the last two prerequisites to change to my major of choice. I have to have at least a 3.0 in all of my math and physics courses in order to switch, which means I have to get Bs in the math and physics courses that I'm taking right now. I didn't do so hot on the midterms so I basically have to ace the finals if I want to get Bs in the classes. Hopefully I will.

Water

I just moved into a new apartment and the water that comes out of the faucets is always either hot or cold. There is no warm. The same temperature comes out of both sides of the faucet and it randomly changes. Maintenance doesn't believe us that it is like that because of Murphy's Law. You know, they come and it works, but the instant they leave it breaks again. Very lame.

Train

So I was taking the train from Davis to Emeryville last night. About five minutes after I got on in Davis, the train comes to a sudden and complete stop. My first thought was that we had to stop for another train to pass, but once I smelled the burning rubber, I thought otherwise. The captain (or whatever you call the guy who makes announcements) came on the intercom and said something along the lines of "someone pulled the emergency stop lever, we don't know what's going on." So I'm talking to this lady across from me and neither of us really knows what's happening. About the same time that the cops and ambulances start to show up, we get another announcement that says "apparently someone ran across the tracks here in Dixon and everything's being investigated" which is followed shortly after by another announcement letting us know that it was, in fact, a fatality, and we would be sitting on the train for an ambiguously long time. Five hours later, I finally got off the train in Emeryville. There's a news article here about it here: http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/14263318p-15076285c.html

On a completely separate and unrelated note... apparently someone wanted to see pictures of my dead elbow. They can be found here:
http://pictures.greatestjournal.com/userimg/6044810/470933
and here:
http://pictures.greatestjournal.com/userimg/6065920/470933

Who needs sleep?

I'm pretty sure I was a lot more tired than I realized this morning when I was getting ready for work because when I went to brush my teeth just now I found my toothbrush still all red from my cinnamon toothpaste. I get to sleep in as much as I want tomorrow though cause I don't have to be at work until 6:30.

Don't ride your bike under the influence of stupidity... it's painful

On my way home from work I was talking on the phone and I tried to change gears with my other hand on the wrong handlebar. BAD IDEA. I am going to have some pretty awesome scars once this is over with. I'd post pictures of my wounds here but I don't think anyone actually reads this, and even if someone does, I don't think you'll want to see my raw, bloody elbow. It's pretty cool though.

Bugs

There are so many bugs in Davis. The other day when I was playing softball one flew into my eye while I was running home. They are in plumes; you can see them from across the field. Tonight I have killed approximately 29590157 of them, just while sitting in my room studying. I almost feel that it's necessary to cover my various facial orifices while I'm walking (or perhaps more importantly, biking) around outside so that they don't end up inside me.

Soccer

I went to my car earlier to get my work shirt and my bat for softball and as I was walking back from the bus stop to my room I had to pass the IM soccer fields. This guy in a jersey ran up to me and asked me if I'd play on their co-ed team because they didn't have enough girls. So I put my stuff on the sidelines and played a game of soccer. I was really bad but it was fun anyway.

Driver's License

Apparently the DMV didn't feel it was important to send me a renewal form for my driver's license, so now I have to take the test again since it expired.

Grades

In my Human Sexuality class there are three midterms and an optional paper. You can use the grade on the paper to replace of the the exam scores if it's higher. Based on my grades on the first two midterms, I knew I needed to get a 95 on either the paper or the third exam in order to get an A in the class. The professor said that the grades for the papers were going to be posted last night or this morning. Long story short, they weren't posted, I didn't study, they lost my paper, I took the exam, e-mailed my paper to the TA, got a 95 on it, and an A in the class.

Pi Day

I went to Safeway and to Albertson's to see if they had any of those little tiny pies but they didn't. But I'm wearing my pi shirt so it's okay.

In other news, I have a place to live for next year. It's pretty nice; I'm excited. And the rent is cheap so that's good too.

Now I have to go study for chemistry, even though I'm going to fail anyway.

My hands smell like butter

This morning at breakfast I had a waffle and I had two little foil packets of butter to put on it. I only used one so I put the other one in my sweatshirt pocket. As luck would have it, I forgot about it and it melted. When I ride my bike I put my bike lock in my pocket because I have nowhere else to put it. So when I got to my afternoon class, I reached in my pocket and pulled out my lock which was covered in butter. I tried to wipe it off but as my hands were already covered in butter, I didn't do a very thorough job. I washed my hands before I went to class, but they still smelled, so I washed them again after I got done with class. Of course, my lock still had quite a thick layer of grease on it when I got back to my bike after class, so my hands became permeated once again. This cycle is going to continue until my hands slowly absorb all of the disgustingness off my lock, and it's going to be gross. And the rain won't help because it is butter after all.

GROSS!

Ew nasty

On the wall in the stairwell near my room, there's a poster that has a list of ways to get healthy or stay healthy or something. One of them was "eat the peel on apples" but they had a picture of a banana next to it. Even though I read apple I was thinking banana because that's what the picture is of. I had to do a double take on that one because who eats the peel on bananas?

Paper towel dispenser

So on Thursday night when I went up to brush my teeth, the paper towel dispenser was jammed so I fixed it. I felt special.

In other news, I come home a lot. I like babysitting and everything, and Mark is on something.... Now we're going to watch some chick-flick.

Bleh...

So I didn't get into Olin (surprise, surprise) and I can't apply to the school in Southern California until next year (so I'd be going there as a junior) and I don't even know if I'm going to do that. We'll have to wait and see.
In other news, I'm joining Davis Pre-Med AMSA, which is an organization for Pre-Med students from any major at UC Davis. That'll be fun; they have seminars and fund raisers and other events all year long. Wheeeee. I'm also going to the Cultural Health Conference which is at the medical school here on campus on March 4th.

I'm an engineer, what can I say?

The paper towel dispenser in the bathroom never works because the paper towels get jammed up inside and when you spin the little thingy to make them come out, they just get stuck even farther away from the dispensing hole. One of these days I'm going to take it apart and figure out how it works so that I can fix it every time it breaks. I'll probably get in trouble for damaging it or something but I don't care.