Two posts in one day?!?! I must be crazy.

But, this one will be short. It's just sort of a status update really. Remember when I said to take care of yourself? Well, make sure you are surrounded by people who do the same. I am currently sucking down hot tea surrounded by fruit, trying to convince myself to go to bed. My roommate and suitemate were tossing bronchitis back and forth for the past month and a half, and now I think my last suitemate and I are finally succumbing to it in the crossfire. But that's what they get; they have terrible eating habits, terrible sleep patterns, and generally don't live well.

I even cleaned out our room and scrubbed the bathroom when they were really picking up in illness. There was bleach and lysol everywhere. The whole suite smelled anti-bacterial, and there was going to be no way I could get sick. If I'm sick during spring break, someone is going to die. I have midterms this week, I can't afford to be sick. For the love of all that is holy, if you live with other people, be courteous, watch your health. Maintaining yourself helps keep them happy. Because if I have bronchitis too, all hell is going to break loose.

So, if you don't hear from me soon, it's probably because when I'm not in class or doing homework, I'm sleeping. Because sleep and tea are always the best remedies. Let's just hope I can make a speedy recovery.

All right. Haven't posted in like two weeks, but I was insanely busy.

I have had three exams, a paper, an interview, and plenty of little things in between to keep me preoccupied. First off, the interview. It was to be a housing assistant, live in the dorms and keep an eye on the freshman sort of thing. I thought the interview went well. But I guess so did 500 other people. Yeah, I didn't realize how many people had applied. So, in the end, I didn't get the job. Now I have to figure out away to pay for another year of school. Hooray, universe, anything else you want to throw at me while I'm down?

Exams, let's not talk about them. They've all been those ones where you look at them, think 'I've got this, this makes so much sense!' and then they are returned with red marks everywhere. Ouch. And apparently studying doesn't work, because the problem is I'm not clever. I can do the math, I can do the theory. What I can't do is look at a problem and instantly know I have to manipulate it, turn it inside out, and then sprinkle it with fairy dust, look at it through an x-ray lense, and then it will be workable. You can't study to be clever.

And so, with this post, I am going to recount all the things I have done wrong in regards to school, and what I should have done instead. This is in hope that anyone reading this who is heading to college, still struggling with college, or even still in high school, because I'm coming to realize that as different as they are, college and high school can be pretty darn similar in terms of how to play the game.

1. DON'T PROCRASTINATE. This has been beat into the heads of everyone ever since we've started school. Heck, there are quotes and sayings throughout history about it. "Don't put off till tomorrow what can be done today" sound familiar? And guess what? They're absolutely right. There are times when I can be a day or two ahead of my workload, but it never lasts long. If you have free time, do your work. Force yourself. Once you start it, your brain makes you anxious until it is finished. It's like looking at a blank page before writing. It's easier to continue once the page has been started.

2. Eat right, and on time. If you eat junk, you will feel like junk. There were some nights when I would just grab a burger because it was there and quick. It was faster than waiting for a healthy deli sandwich or taking the time to make a salad. And those nights, and the morning after, I felt terrible. Tired, sluggish, uncomfortable. Also, don't skip eating. I don't mean eat constantly, just when you're hungry and make sure you're keeping fueled up. Take care of yourself.

3. Use your resources. I can't even begin to list off tutoring opportunities offered by my school. Online, study center, professor office hours, the list goes on and on. They are there for a reason. The lectures and text book are good and all, but sometimes you need that extra oomph to understand, or just one more explanation. People learn in different ways, find out what works for you.

4. Enjoy yourself. It doesn't have to be all work and no play, you just have to know where to draw the line. And sometimes, when you have to be clever with homework, doing something fun and creative can get your brain pumping. You're in college, a new environment, explore it a little. Go to that little ice cream parlor down the street for floats with friends. Explore the nightlife, if that's your cup of tea. This goes with taking care of yourself. Having fun recharges your batteries for those nights when you have to write a physics lab and it takes you 6 hours.

Let me know if you've learned anything else, or want more details on something. these are just my own personal mistakes I've learned from. But they were good lessons, and you can't get anywhere without a few knocks now and then.

My god what a busy weekend.

Interview for the CA position went along swimmingly. I went to bed so early, I actually woke up before my alarm. To my surprise, but it really shouldn't have been, my roommate and suitemate were still awake. Sort of. It was about 6 in the morning. This is what happens when you have Fridays off. You stay up all night Thursday, sleep all day Friday (I came home to my roommate still in bed after I got back from Chinese. At 2:30 in the afternoon), then stay up all night Friday and repeat this until you crash into Sunday night. And skid painfully into the first few days of the week. Though my roommate seems to have that figured out as well, seeing as she doesn't start class until 3 on Mondays.

I have seen her power walking and almost sprinting across campus because she woke up late to it. And it isn't even that far from our dorms.

But I digress. The interview was so amazingly similar to Academic Decathlon (which I did for some time in high school) that I fell right into my routine. Nod, smile, firm handshake, crack a joke, tell a good anecdote, use the buzzwords, ask the right questions. If I don't get the job, kudos to whoever can beat me out of it. But I'm like 99% certain I won the position, now it's just a matter of my placement. Got back to my room, grabbed my homework, and left them all still snoring away blissfully. My roommate's current boyfriend was supposed to interview at the same time as me, but I guess he missed out. There were a surprising number of people who were absent, which just raises my certainty that I'm hired.


Wrote a paper very quickly before I had to dash off to Moderator Training for the local comic convention. I'm quite proud of that paper, never thought I'd enjoy this humanities class so much, glad I got an awesome professor. He's the one who makes you excited about things you had never really given much thought to. Like how the ancient greeks totally knew the earth was a sphere and the exact radius of the earth. A guy, using basic geometry and a hired walking tape measure, was able to calculate it to within one percent of what we know it as today. How is that not mind bogglingly astounding? My mind was boggled, and this particular paper was about Galileo. Perfect.

Moderator training was a blast. Even though it was my first time, there were several other new people there, and we just sort of dove in. Sort of similar to 'Whose Line is it Anyway', there is a nonsensical point system in place that kind of has rewards. If you wear a nerdy T-shirt, 100 points. Make a reference, 10 points. Make one of the instructors laugh so hard he nearly chokes on his water bottle, 1000 points. I'm gonna win this game so hard, it's gonna hurt. We were regaled of horror stories of troublesome crowds, which were hilarious, troublesome guests (which I am under contract to not gossip about, sadly), and troublesome volunteers. The last one was a little sad; why would you screw up an opportunity like that? Some of the more serous offenders were banned from even visiting the convention. I can't even fathom not going. It's like one of the biggest highlights of my year every year.

And today: homework. Lots of it. It's not so much that I don't do it in a timely fashion, though my procrastination certainly contributes, it's just that my teachers don't assign anything too terribly early, and when they do every single one of them assign at the same time. Can we make a motion so that different subjects are due on different days? Sciences can be due Mondays, humanities on Tuesdays, labs on Wednesdays, etc etc. I think that would definitely help streamline my work load, and I could plan my week accordingly. Plus, the teachers would be able to be stricter on due dates, since it was clear from the first day of school when homework would be turned in. I like this idea, I don't know about anyone else, though.

But so far, that's all I have to report. Another long week, though without anything too major happening, so hopefully it'll be nice and easy to get through. My post-it note to-do list never seems to get shorter, but I'm gonna try and make a dent in it tonight. Wish me luck.

Honestly, how many life skills do these kids not posses? This morning there was a fire drill, because someone couldn't coo food properly. They made cinnamon buns in the lounge kitchen, which went just fine. But they put the used pans back into the oven and forgot to turn it off, incinerating the leftovers and setting off the alarms. It wasn't the first time. Another person burned popcorn a few weeks ago.

Just last week I found an entire egg crate pad for a bed shoved into a washer machine. The lid wouldn't shut at all, and the pad was streaked with blue as though someone had poured soap all over it. Why can nobody do anything without being so helpless? I can see it right in my own bathroom, when I walk in to see these things:

What is this? When you finish the roll, you replace it. Common courtesy.

Okay, I can see you've gotten a new roll, but that isn't replacing it. Seriously, you've already gotten it from the pack, you might as well put it on the holder.

Closer, but I think you may have missed something there.

 Seriously, I'm glad we've managed to stop the elves, but take some responsibility. How hard is it for these kids to grow up? There's a very distinct line in my room between where Ramesh has her stuff strewn and my nearly spotless half. I'm not saying I'm the cleanest person, but at least I have some semblance of organization on my side. It's the same in the bathroom. Meredith and I have signed for next year to share a suite, but I'm going to be in my own room. I can't wait.

Well, I should probably be getting to bed soon, big interview tomorrow. Wish me luck, here's to hoping I get the one opening in the honors college, but if not, I suppose I could CA for the regular kids.

Oh, and I forgot to talk about my little fetish animals from the Christmas trip. Aren't they the coolest things ever? They get to sit up on that shelf and watch me as I try to convince myself it's time to get off the internet and start doing homework. I can feel them judging me.

They stare into my soul, and can see how unproductive I am.

All right, it's been a week since my last post, and what a busy week it's been.

First off, went home this weekend, partially for the Superbowl food and partially to keep adding to my hat inventory. And boy was the Superbowl food delicious. I bet if I learned to make the thing mom made, I'd be the most popular person in the dorms. It was really hard to be productive with my homework and hats when all I wanted to do was keep eating that dip.

Then coming back to school, everything got kicked off into a blur. Last night, we had mock interviews for the position I applied for, and it certainly was helpful. Not only is there an individual interview like what most people think of when they think of an interview, but there's also a group aspect where various interviewees are watched by the employers to see how well you work as both a leader and a member of a group. That's going to be on Saturday, but last night was a little more relaxed. Groups went well enough, thanks to my years of group work in high school classes and clubs. And thank you Academic Decathlon. When I got to my individual practice interview, my mentor was amazed at my answers.

I'm good at the interview game.

She told me that it was going to be perfect, and that if she was hiring, I'd be hired on the spot. That was certainly heartening, seeing as there are going to only be one or two openings in my category, unless I tell them that I'm okay with working in the non-honors dorms. I might do that, just to be on the safe side for the position. Of course, I was feeling good after last night, when my mentor told me that it was almost guaranteed.

Today was free pancake day at IHOP. Tristan and I went off to it, and surprisingly, for an IHOP so close to a college campus it was pretty moderately empty. We got in an out of there in an hour, maybe a little more, with plenty of time to head back to class. Classes were normal, just like every other day, and then later I went to a training for an overnight ambassador position that I may or may not get. It isn't because I won't be qualified, they just have more ambassadors than visitors coming. I met a few of my friends there, and we were talking about the previous night because most if not all the people there were applying to be a CA.

Remember how I mentioned feeling good about my chances. Well, one of my friends, Ian, told me he kept hearing them mention to everyone being interviewed how well they were doing. Well, dammit. If we were all doing great, how are we supposed to compete? Now I'm a little uncertain, but hopefully the nerves are gone by Saturday. Thanks, Ian, for ruining my hopes.

Now I'm just hoping to get through the week and rock the interview. Yay for jobs!

I've discovered that I am the opposite of a typical college student. I'm more productive if I wake up early, I've been eating healthier than at home, and as the week gets closer and closer to laundry day, I dress nicer and nicer. But my reasoning is that I only wear my nice stuff for nice occasions. And so, as I wear my every day clothes, I slowly dwindle down to only my fancy attire to wear. I'm the best dressed person in the laundry room when I finally am down to my last non-smelly article. It certainly garners me a few looks when I haul up the jeans and t-shirts whilst dressed to the nines.

I will never tire of my calculus professor's accent. Today, we were discussing cylinders, but of course he has to say it completely awkward. It comes out as "Cylon"-ders. Now, I think of Lucifer and humanity killing robots. Great. Oh, and he makes it even harder to focus during homework, when he throws in questions like these in between all the normal boring ones:

Bah.

Oh, and I'm really really excited about the next month or so. I've got big plans. Let's hope they work out for the best.

A final thought for the night: why do we have to sleep? Lying prone on a bed for six or seven hours unconscious really puts a damper on my productivity. There aren't enough hours in a day, and then I'm supposed to spend a third of them asleep? What is this absurdity? I mean, I understand that sleep recharges me, that it's the time when your body heals itself, but seriously, it's probably the biggest irritation in my life. More than homework or managing my money to survive the rest of the semester.Sleep is the bane of my existence.

But I should probably get some soon. Good night, I hope to have more to report in the future.

PS: Dinner was fun, Dad, I'm glad we managed to do it at least once this year. :)

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.