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Well. I've just finished a mound of homework that was threatening to eat me alive, but found the internet (though not telnet) is working decently tonight, and thought I'd post to let everyone know I am still alive. Well, kind of.
The freshmen in my hall are good, kind, fun people. Unfortunately, it is a small narrow hall. They have a tendency to get louder and bouncier as the night goes on. The noise carries through the walls, and so does the bouncing. So. For the past few nights I have been up until 1:30 am, because that is when they are up until.
My first time hosting a prospective student was fun, though I don't know if she'll be coming here. She mostly overnighted because her mom wanted her to, but that's the reason I overnighted, and it changed my mind. I was worried my 'spec' would be a party girl and violate all the hosting policies, but she didn't, and had a pretty good time, I think.
I've got a Geology Exam tomorrow, and a Russian Vocab test tomorrow, and a Russian Exam the day after that. And the normal readings and such. I had an oral Russian exam today, which I am not too hopeful about, though I studied for it on Sunday night. We had to call our professor. It's hard to make out what she's saying in real life. On the phone it was ten times worse. Ugh. And by that time I was so out of it anyway, from lack of sleep and work and such, that I just wanted to get the thing over with. I dropped by my College Seminar prof's office, where we talked about my essay that I'd turned in. He caught some glaring mistakes that truly embarassed me - "my great-great grandfather and his husband," anyone? - proving that I didn't proofread enough, but other than that it was all technical. The last prof. told me to use more phrases to provide transition. Here I did it and he didn't like it. My highschool English teachers were split on if a comma should be put before and, and he decided that it wasn't a good idea and told me I had too many commas anyway. And then he said I used too many dashes. When I asked what he suggested about the dashes, he told me to put the information between two commas.
He asked me to rewrite the paper by Friday, but of course it was one of the papers eaten by the Great Computer Catastophe, so I have to retype the whole thing again, and then rewrite it.
At that point, I think my brain turned to mashed potatoes.
It stayed there throughout the Russian oral exam, the night class, and the homework.
In other news: friendly people on the hall who understand what you're going through are great. Someone took my laundry out of the dryer, and instead of heaping it up on the dryer and letting it wrinkle, folded it for me. That made me very grateful.
Friends who help with computer problems are also good. A friend talked to an instructor of hers who also happens to run the network here. The good news: he will look at my case file and see what he can do to help. The bad news: the ethernet hookup may have, at one point, fried my ethernet card. This would mean getting a new card. This would be bad - I'm still waiting for my check for my first two weeks of work, which is mostly going to replenish my bank account, though I'd rather get a costume for the Masquerade Ball with it. I've decided to be Delirium from the Sandman comics. I haven't decided whether I'm brave enough to dye my hair, and if so, what color - red, or green/pink?
My job. Yeah. I like it. On Friday my supervisor told a great joke, and I put together slides from a book called "500 Self-Portraits." I felt like I did all 500, though it really wasn't that many. And then yesterday, about 30 or so of the slides were returned to me. Some of them do have bits of white space showing, which it's my job to block out. Some of them - mainly the ones I did late in the day, have tape that sagged or stretched when I was masking the slides, and my brain thought it looked like a straight line when it really wasn't. But some of them, I can't for the life of me figure out what's wrong with them. So I get to redo those over again, too. At least I'm getting paid for my time.
I've once again discovered the joys of writing class. It keeps suprising me, how much I like this three-hour thing where we basically sit and talk about writers and writing and life and books and politics and such. I wish it wasn't quite so late - it goes until 10 and I usually have about 2 hours of work to do afterwards - but it's wonderfully refreshing. I haven't felt that good playing around with ideas since 8th grade "hey, take your lunch and bring it into this classroom where anyone who wants to come can talk about writing and books and life and the world and maybe we'll do a poetry exercise" time.
And when I'm done with my homework, since the internet isn't working *pout pout* I have been reading books.
Yesterday's was "Algernon, Charlie, and I: A Writer's Journey," by Daniel Keyes. It's an autobiography and memior of Keyes, who wrote the absolutely wonderful novel, "Flowers For Algernon." If you haven't read the novel, go out and read it. Now! If you have read the novel, go out and read Keyes' memior. It's amazingly wonderful. Quite funny and also rather frank about the crap one has to go through to get published, and the other crap after that.
Tonight's novel was "Geek Love," by Katherine Dunn. No, not the kind of geek who can write code, though that's not a bad kind of geek. ;) It's a slang term for the person who bites heads off chickens in a carnival show. This book follows the lives of a family running a carnival that gets progressively wierder, even though it started off pretty odd to begin with. It's narrated mostly from the point of view of one of the owners' "special children," who is deformed because her (very loving - really!) parents experimented with a variety of interesting and potentially toxic substances to produce acts for said carnival. It's disturbing. It's hilarious. It's a book I found that was very healing for me to read. But it's definitely not a book for the faint of heart. But I really did like it.
Finally, I miss Arc...*sighs* Grr. I know they're doing all they can to fix the computer mess, but it'd be so nice if they'd fix it before break, and not after.
Vacation is in three days.
Thank God; I think I am going to need all the relaxation I can get.
The freshmen in my hall are good, kind, fun people. Unfortunately, it is a small narrow hall. They have a tendency to get louder and bouncier as the night goes on. The noise carries through the walls, and so does the bouncing. So. For the past few nights I have been up until 1:30 am, because that is when they are up until.
My first time hosting a prospective student was fun, though I don't know if she'll be coming here. She mostly overnighted because her mom wanted her to, but that's the reason I overnighted, and it changed my mind. I was worried my 'spec' would be a party girl and violate all the hosting policies, but she didn't, and had a pretty good time, I think.
I've got a Geology Exam tomorrow, and a Russian Vocab test tomorrow, and a Russian Exam the day after that. And the normal readings and such. I had an oral Russian exam today, which I am not too hopeful about, though I studied for it on Sunday night. We had to call our professor. It's hard to make out what she's saying in real life. On the phone it was ten times worse. Ugh. And by that time I was so out of it anyway, from lack of sleep and work and such, that I just wanted to get the thing over with. I dropped by my College Seminar prof's office, where we talked about my essay that I'd turned in. He caught some glaring mistakes that truly embarassed me - "my great-great grandfather and his husband," anyone? - proving that I didn't proofread enough, but other than that it was all technical. The last prof. told me to use more phrases to provide transition. Here I did it and he didn't like it. My highschool English teachers were split on if a comma should be put before and, and he decided that it wasn't a good idea and told me I had too many commas anyway. And then he said I used too many dashes. When I asked what he suggested about the dashes, he told me to put the information between two commas.
He asked me to rewrite the paper by Friday, but of course it was one of the papers eaten by the Great Computer Catastophe, so I have to retype the whole thing again, and then rewrite it.
At that point, I think my brain turned to mashed potatoes.
It stayed there throughout the Russian oral exam, the night class, and the homework.
In other news: friendly people on the hall who understand what you're going through are great. Someone took my laundry out of the dryer, and instead of heaping it up on the dryer and letting it wrinkle, folded it for me. That made me very grateful.
Friends who help with computer problems are also good. A friend talked to an instructor of hers who also happens to run the network here. The good news: he will look at my case file and see what he can do to help. The bad news: the ethernet hookup may have, at one point, fried my ethernet card. This would mean getting a new card. This would be bad - I'm still waiting for my check for my first two weeks of work, which is mostly going to replenish my bank account, though I'd rather get a costume for the Masquerade Ball with it. I've decided to be Delirium from the Sandman comics. I haven't decided whether I'm brave enough to dye my hair, and if so, what color - red, or green/pink?
My job. Yeah. I like it. On Friday my supervisor told a great joke, and I put together slides from a book called "500 Self-Portraits." I felt like I did all 500, though it really wasn't that many. And then yesterday, about 30 or so of the slides were returned to me. Some of them do have bits of white space showing, which it's my job to block out. Some of them - mainly the ones I did late in the day, have tape that sagged or stretched when I was masking the slides, and my brain thought it looked like a straight line when it really wasn't. But some of them, I can't for the life of me figure out what's wrong with them. So I get to redo those over again, too. At least I'm getting paid for my time.
I've once again discovered the joys of writing class. It keeps suprising me, how much I like this three-hour thing where we basically sit and talk about writers and writing and life and books and politics and such. I wish it wasn't quite so late - it goes until 10 and I usually have about 2 hours of work to do afterwards - but it's wonderfully refreshing. I haven't felt that good playing around with ideas since 8th grade "hey, take your lunch and bring it into this classroom where anyone who wants to come can talk about writing and books and life and the world and maybe we'll do a poetry exercise" time.
And when I'm done with my homework, since the internet isn't working *pout pout* I have been reading books.
Yesterday's was "Algernon, Charlie, and I: A Writer's Journey," by Daniel Keyes. It's an autobiography and memior of Keyes, who wrote the absolutely wonderful novel, "Flowers For Algernon." If you haven't read the novel, go out and read it. Now! If you have read the novel, go out and read Keyes' memior. It's amazingly wonderful. Quite funny and also rather frank about the crap one has to go through to get published, and the other crap after that.
Tonight's novel was "Geek Love," by Katherine Dunn. No, not the kind of geek who can write code, though that's not a bad kind of geek. ;) It's a slang term for the person who bites heads off chickens in a carnival show. This book follows the lives of a family running a carnival that gets progressively wierder, even though it started off pretty odd to begin with. It's narrated mostly from the point of view of one of the owners' "special children," who is deformed because her (very loving - really!) parents experimented with a variety of interesting and potentially toxic substances to produce acts for said carnival. It's disturbing. It's hilarious. It's a book I found that was very healing for me to read. But it's definitely not a book for the faint of heart. But I really did like it.
Finally, I miss Arc...*sighs* Grr. I know they're doing all they can to fix the computer mess, but it'd be so nice if they'd fix it before break, and not after.
Vacation is in three days.
Thank God; I think I am going to need all the relaxation I can get.
