The long weekend was lovely, though I didn't get everything that I wanted done. The rest of the week flew past in a blur, and now I'm sitting and waiting for the next one to start. Just a few months ago I was a freshman sitting on my unmade bed and waiting to meet my roommate for the first time. Now, applications for scholarships and programs for next year are littering my browser, and it's all just sort of starting to hit me.

In other news, the application for being a Community Assistant went through, and I have an interview coming up. Cross your fingers and wish me luck. If I can get the position, room and board and food will all be paid for next year, along with the chance to plan all the parties and fun stuff the floors experience. I really really want this job. A friend of mine did it, and was hired for this semester, and said the interview is a cinch. Finally, my Academic Decathlon skills will be useful.

Also, even though I've dropped Satellite Club, I did join the Astronomy Club. Not as much work, and I figured it would be a good stepping stone to a bigger club. And they teach how to do astro-photography, like taking pictures through telescopes. One of their officers is amazing at it, I can't wait to try my hand at it.

And just a little side note, I can't take my calculus professor seriously. Because of his accent, every time he says 'theta' it comes out as 'Satan'. And we have to use theta a lot because we're currently working with vectors. It's getting harder and harder to just not burst out laughing in that class. Not to mention that other people are starting to notice these weird little quirks, and there are small snickers that just make you want to join in. I'm going to burst out one day, and regret nothing.

But other than that, it's just business as usual. Once you think you get caught up another wave of work just rolls through, and you're back to square one. Maybe they should teach Sisyphus more in high school, as preparation for college. Because it becomes a game of how long can you roll your rock to the top before you slide back down the mountain? And so, every sentence I add is just me stalling time before I have to get back to my homework, a russian accent in the back of my mind when I crack open the calculus book and visions of nose hairs when I think about physics. If I can make it through four years of this with my sanity still intact, I think they should give me the degree purely out of principle.

Elves are stealing our toilet paper.

Seriously. We came back from break, and each of us brought at least a four pack. Aly brought two. It has been two weeks, and we ran out two days ago. 16 ROLLS OF PAPER. Somebody has to be stealing them, I know I didn't change the roll that many times, and goodness knows nobody else ever changes it. But to get to our bathroom, they have to go through one of our rooms. How would they ever possibly smuggle it out, but more importantly, why?!?!?! Thankfully Valerie was able to steal some from her brother until we go buy some more, but still. This is getting a little ridiculous. If only we had the space to store a billion pack from Sam's Club.

Also, my crazy calculus professor is so technologically inept I couldn't decide whether I wanted to laugh or cringe. Today he was trying to show us how to use his website (that a friend of his made), and went to try and google it. He started typing in the www part, then went back to the beginning to add the http: and then he couldn't even spell google. Bing helpfully gave him the link, and then he stumbled through the 90s-esque website with the old outdated wallpaper, and silly animated pictures. The entire class was snickering under their breath, but since he is constantly laughing at jokes no one heard him say, he must have thought we were laughing with him for once.

Needless to say, it is entirely too hard to take him seriously. Between the accent, awkward trailing sentences, and completely unrelated tangents, I don't know just how much I'm going to take away from this class, but thank god I have a text book. And I've decided I can't ask questions. Because after listening to him for about a half an hour, I know anything that comes out of my mouth will be tinged with an accent. It just happens. Marathon of Sherlock/Doctor Who/every BBC show ever? My brain switches to Queen's English. It certainly gets interesting.

Anyways, toilet paper. I never would've thought I'd want toilet paper for Christmas, but I should've asked for all of it. And you will never appreciate it until you wake up at three in the morning needing to pee Niagara Falls and discovering that not only was the roll that you could've sworn was full when you went to sleep is now empty, and all the packs are empty and the nearest public restroom is downstairs, in the dark, in 20 degree weather, and has a 90% chance of being locked anyways. When you bundle up, scuffle out in your slippers in sleepy search of an open bathroom while trying not to pee your pants, toilet paper looks more valuable than gold.

But I think shopping is in order for the weekend. A nice, lovely, three day weekend. Plenty of time to do four days worth of homework. Not really, but it feels that way sometimes. But there will always be time for an update. We'll see what the weekend brings. Until next time! <3

Last week, nothing really new to report. Classes are classes, only new thing is my TA for Chinese. I like her. It certainly feels like I'm going to be learning quite a bit more this semester.

In other news, it got COLD. I didn't even wear a jacket for half of December, now I'm wearing sweatshirts and gloves and everything! How I wish for a scarf. Biking stings more than I thought possible. Maybe I should go get a balaclava. Might look like a bank robber, but I'd be so damn warm. Not to mention, it is really, really, really hard to type when most of my fingers refuse to bend more than a hair.

This weekend, though, was the big excitement. I volunteered for the Comicon before, and somehow got on a volunteer mailing list. They kept sending me emails about volunteer meetings, and even though I wasn't technically a volunteer this year, I figured what the heck. So I bundled up, hiked over to the tram, and hopped on for downtown. Talked to a few people, shook some hands, and now I am officially a volunteer once more. But not just any volunteer. I'm a panel moderator.

What that means is that when the famous people, or not so famous but still interesting to meet people, have their discussions and talks that bring people in to see them, I get to stand at a podium up on stage with them, make sure nobody asks silly questions, and ask questions myself if the conversation slows down. I get to talk with them before and after. It's going to be awesome! Not to mention I get a free ticket and food out of it.

The reason I finally decided to volunteer for the convention is because I found out that the summer cap that I want to go to for Chinese doesn't start until after the convention. I had been thinking it was before, so I had been super bummed that I would be missing it this year. Nope! Unfortunately, I may or may not be missing the summer camp this year, since it is mighty expensive.

For eight weeks of super intensive language learning in Indiana, it is $5000. Yikes. The Chinese Department that helps sort these things out says they have scholarships to apply for and to look into other sources of funding, but I don't know how well that will work out. But if I don't wind up going, it won't be the end of the world. I'll just have to adjust my schedule, find a job for the summer, and start saving up. Speaking of which, here's to hoping I get the CA position I applied for. Interviews don't begin for about a month, but I've got a good feeling about it. Between my current CA's saying they always need more engineering ones to the fact that they know me from a lot of community events has me in a positive mood. Cross your fingers, the job will soon be mine (hopefully!).

Other than that, not much to report on this end. Homework is waiting to be done, and though I don't have a lot, there are just those nights where you look at it and just think "....I should sleep." But tonight will be productive, I can promise that much. Just have to make some tea and power through it. I'll have more to write about soon!

And so it begins again. Classes have started, and I've already been to every single one that I will be having (minus labs, of course. Those start next week). So far, I see nothing wrong with the semester ahead. My physics professor is....eccentric, I believe, is the nicest way to put it. But he loves what he teaches and certainly makes the class worth going to. Chinese is the same as always, though this time we're going to be speaking a whole lot more in the class than last semester. Be prepared to be amazed when I can speak a whole new language, give or take a few more classes of it.

Differential equations sounds deceptively hard, but if you have a good understanding above and below your belt, I think it won't be too bad. It also helps that I know a whole mob of people in the hundred plus large lecture. The most amusing thing is that a lot of them picked that particular professor for all the wrong reasons. There is a website called ratemyprofessors. It's an ingenious idea really; students log in, find the professors they took, and score them in various categories such as easiness and communication, as well as comments they feel should be known. Students can look up professors and see who is a good fit for them. I use it all the time.

But there is one more category that can be ranked: the chili pepper. Teachers bestowed with such an honor have been identified as "hot" by their pupils, and very few can claim to have one on their profile. My differential equations professor had one, and it was on fire; it couldn't get any hotter unless it was a burned out crumble on the website. Everyone's schedule revolved around that flaming chili pepper. When we arrived in class, everyone's disappointment was visible. That's not to say she was ugly, I think it was just more their imaginations grew a little wild over the break. But she's good at what she does, and the best part is she said we don't need her textbook. That's $150 I don't have that I don't have to spend. Amazing.

Human event. It was the bane of my existence last semester. I dread Mondays and Wednesdays because of it. I am proud to say that I never missed a single class of it, but that's not to say that I enjoyed it. This semester is different. My human event professor exudes this excitement, this energy that just smothers the room and seeps into you. You can't help but get excited too. He seems not only interested in what he's teaching, but he seems genuinely interested in every single one of his students as people, as equals. He's not there to lecture to us, he's engaging us and our thoughts in the discussion. In my first class with him, he actually knew every single person's name from the roster, and named us all within five minutes, even the new ones he's never seen before. He joked with us when we went around introducing ourselves, commenting on the interesting fact we were supposed to offer to the class. He got me really excited about old dead Greek guys and the math they were doing two thousand years ago. This is going to be a great class, and I'm going to enjoy talking about it on here.

Calculus is certainly an interesting one. I'm in the third level, the last one I have to take. My professor is Russian/Slavic, I couldn't tell exactly. His accent is one of the heaviest I have ever heard. It's not too much of a problem, I can understand accents pretty easily. It's the fact that he was going so slow during the first lecture. I'm hoping it only seemed that way because I learned most of the math that he was teaching during my physics classes, and that once we get into the new stuff my interest will be a little better. Supposedly Calculus III throws in an extra dimension, which is what makes it so hard for people. Bring it on.

Other than that, I don't see a whole lot more to report. It's only been two days, but I figured a nice recap of the classes before I become too involved was necessary. I regret to admit that I will be dropping out of the Satellite club for the time being; I just feel terrible being in it because I can't contribute in any way. I'm going to finish up my math, try and understand the mechanics they use, and go back in hopefully a year or less. I just feel as though I slow them down when they have to stop and try to explain or teach me every part of the project.

In other news, I know some people wanted to know, but I'm not sure who I've told, I finished last semester with a 3.5 GPA. Disappointing, I know, but here's to hoping that this next semester will be better. I know I make this promise every post, but I promise I will write more often (just not every day. That was a ridiculous goal.)

I have a final tonight.

This post is me just taking a moment away from studying. My brain hurts a little, I think math is going to start pouring out my ears soon. But to be honest, I think I'm starting to enjoy math a little. Mostly because I can relate it to physics, but that's another story.

The dorms have been blissfully quiet, thanks to 24 hour quiet hours being in place. Thank you, everyone, for following the rules. Although, the dining hall has been eerily quiet because no one really talks anymore, too busy studying even while they eat. These kids get intense during finals.

But yeah, this is basically me procrastinating until I go back to studying. I just thought you'd all like to hear from me. Oh, that reminds me, Ramesh is done with finals after tomorrow, so she's heading out on Saturday. Valerie and Aly are also leaving this weekend, which means I'm going to be all alone for a few days. Goodness, what shall I do? Studying can get tedious and repetitive after a while, can't do that ALL weekend.

Other than that, not much to report. I think I rocked my Chinese Oral final, but we'll see how I do tomorrow on the written portion, and wish me luck for tonight on the calculus one. Hopefully it won't hurt my soul too much. T-minus 4 hours, 38 minutes, until everything comes to a climax.

I can do this!

Goodness. First breather since Thanksgiving. Apologies for not writing sooner, but everything sort of just collaborated and planned on being due at the exact same time.

First off, I FINISHED NANO WRIMO. So, to all you naysayers, neener neener neener. I did it! Yeah, it was a little hard, what with me accidentally breaking my computer (let's not tell this story) just as I got back to the dorms right after Thanksgiving. But thank goodness for Dell and their amazing technical support. So, I typed what I could during the week when I wasn't catching my two days of missed homework up, but Friday was when it really began. Skyelar and I looked at our wordcount that morning. It was dismally behind by about 22,000 words. And we had until midnight to play catch up.

I wrote 18,000 words that day.

That's right, I totally wrote almost half the entire book in just one day. I can't even begin to describe how amazing it is that my Fridays are almost devoid of any classes, and what classes I do have are delightfully brief. Skyelar and I were fueled by so much coffee, I'm surprised I didn't overdose on caffeine. But we did it! Granted, we lost so much sleep waiting for the validation page to load, we may as well have pulled an all nighter, but we finally managed to crash before the sky grew light again with the comfort that our novel was submitted and we had done a job well done.

And then school started to lose its mind. It was like someone suddenly the on switch in all the teachers. Papers were everywhere, panic in the streets, nobody slept a decent amount at all, my suite mate actually went one night without a single hour of sleep. Poor girl was tottering on her feet by lunch the next day. Study guides and exams an preparations for finals. Projects and essays and research all colliding into the past two days. In the past two days, I have had more homework and quizzes and presentations than I had averaged in November.

Absolutely ridiculous. But all in all, the next two weeks are shaping up to be quite the challenge. A few finals, thankfully not one for every single class, but all of them important. So, like I said, this was the first moment of freedom in a while. Don't be too upset if I don't write again until vacation begins, but I will try to relax my brain with more posts this month.

That's all for now.

Ah, the sweet month of November.

The first week has gone relatively well, my NaNo WriMo might have fallen behind by a day or two, but that can easily be made up this long weekend. School comes first, always. And speaking of school, I just had the latest night of my life for schoolwork.

If you had told me I would stay up until 1 trying to write a lab report at the beginning of the semester, I would have laughed at you. But I now see that it is in fact a reality. Late nights are the bane of my existence. Thankfully, it was the first time I had to resort to such drastic measures, and hopefully the only one for a long time.

But enough about that.

Satellite club has put the major project on hold for now, until the Goddard Institute gets back to us on the details. In the meantime, we're going to work on something called a CanSat. Basically, they give you a simple mission, you create the satellite from scratch, and they launch it up as high as they can and then the satellite "delivers" a payload to a martian surface (ie: back to earth). We were looking at the design requirements the other day, and the club was just in tears laughing. Compared to the big project, everything looks laughably easy. I can't wait, because the whole point of this project is to give new team members hands on experience. Which means me. Heck yes.

And in other news, I am one step closer to world domination. If you count being a Community Assistant in the dorms world domination. We had a small party for the engineers out on the lawn last nigh with s'mores and cocoa and a fire. It was fantastic, and I helped make the whole thing work. The CA's are starting to love me, especially after the trick or treating I did on Halloween for the floor. And I'm busy planning one more event so I can just rock the interview and resume for the application. If I don't get to be a CA next year, I don't know what I'm going to do.

Other than that, my week has been relatively uneventful. Long weekend ahead, I think some well deserved rest and tea and Star Trek is in order.