I'm home! Classes are over! I finished my final paper! Hopefully did okay on it!

Thursday and Friday were the most exhausting days of my life. I mean, I've been mentally exhausted for a month, and then Thursday and Friday I was running all over campus, going up and down 4 flights of stairs ridiculous amounts, and carrying way too heavy boxes everywhere. But thankfully it's done with now.

Anyways, I'm still pretty tired, and I have Thursday and Friday (and today too, actually; I need to watch Doctor Who) TV to catch up with, so I'm going to do that. I'll have actual substantial things to post about tomorrow.

Hee. My mom rented the Battlestar Galactica mini-series and watched it and liked it. I've mentioned the show before to her and told her she would probably like it (she likes Doctor Who and she's a science fiction and fantasy writer, so I thought it would be something she'd like), but she totally watched it without any encouragement from me at all. Usually I have to make my parents watch DVDs of shows I think they'd like when we're on vacation or whatever, but she totally did this on her own. I am greatly amused by this. I don't think she likes it as much as Doctor Who or other shows I've showed her, but I actually didn't totally love the show after the mini-series either (I love the mini-series now, but it took awhile for me to get into the show and get familiar with the characters and the world), so I told her that it gets even more interesting in further seasons.

Anyways, I've been working all day, which is no fun. I woke up at 8 AM, ok? On a SUNDAY. That's just wrong. But I did manage to get loads of work done in that time, so it was worth it. I still need to study more for my abnormal psych test tomorrow and prepare for my Drugs and Society presentation, but I finished my part of the group paper I have due for Drugs and Society, and now I only have one paper left this semester! I am so happy about that. Only 4 days, and I'll be totally done with this semester! 2 days, and I'll be done with classes! I can't wait.

BOBCAT KITTENS! lkajsdf ADORABLE.

Picture taken by my mom from our backyard. I want to go home and see the bobcat kittens! The mom didn't come around last year and maybe not the year before, so it's been awhile since I've seen bobcat kittens. They better still be hanging around in a week's time.

...yeah, I have nothing of substance to say. OMG KITTENS.

...so you know that 8-page paper that I bitched about endlessly that was due last Thursday for English that I left all to Wednesday to write and stayed up late to finish and all that? Yeah, got that back today. Got an A/A-. I just... what? This is not the way to prevent me from reinforcing bad habits of leaving everything to the last minute! This is the highest grade I've gotten on an English paper all semester! There's an inverse relationship between the amount of time I spent on the papers/paper revision and the grade I got. I mean, I'm totally not complaining, I'm absolutely thrilled about that, since that means it's very likely I'll get an A- in the class, unless I totally screw up the last paper, which I shouldn't. But I should have done terribly on it so I'd never want to do that again! I guess the extreme nausea that resulted from drinking so much caffeine that night was a sort of negative reinforcer. But still! (I also got an A- on the abstract film I stressed out about and did basically in one afternoon. Also not helping with the reinforcing good study habits!)

Anyways, it's Maaaayyyyy! May 1st isn't as good as May 8th (ljdf one week and I'm done with everything!), but it's definitely better than nearly every day in April, and definitely better than yesterday. My paper is done! And hopefully isn't too crappy! I feel sick again like last week since I drank loads of coffee Wednesday to help me focus. ugh. I need to stop doing that. It has a really terrible effect on me.

The poll results from yesterday are pretty amusing to me. ( Babbling about the poll! )

Ok, tired now. And I have a headache, but don't want to use Advil after learning about it and other over-the-counter analgesics in Drugs and Society. bah. Stupid class. But only three more days of classes! The semester is so close to being over! I am very pleased about that. (Not so much about the ridiculous amount of work I have to do within the next 7 days.)

Poll #1180373 Random Questions!
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

How do you pronounce "prevalence"?

How do you pronounce "comfortable"?

When typing, do you put one or two spaces between the period/exclamation mark/question mark and the next sentence?

( Reasons I'm asking you these questions! )

Random poll, I know. But I felt like procrastinating some more. I officially have 133 words out of 2000 right now. heh. Not so good. I'm just really stuck about how to approach this paper. I really need to just DO it and stop bitching about it, I know. sigh.

Last random tidbit before actually getting to work! Something that's really been amusing me in my Film Analysis class: Ok, so we've been discussing how different things like... masculinity and femininity and such are socially-constructed categories and are not inherent qualities defining what men or women are, and my professor keeps describing how these categories are "post-it notes" that we put on people and the world sees them that way and such, and I can't help but always thinking about The Office episode "Diversity Day" when Michael puts the various post-it notes on people's head of different races and then everyone's supposed to treat each other like the race on their head. This wouldn't be a problem (it's actually a pretty good literal example of what he's describing) except that every time he brings it up, I start cracking up, and... what he's discussing isn't actually amusing. But I figured that you all would be much more appreciative of how amusing it is.

Ok, time to work!

I am so disoriented. I went up to my bed to finish reading for English and I was done at 8:20 so I was like "I'm comfortable. I'm just going to lie here for like 10 minutes, and then I'll get up and do other stuff." And then I ended up falling asleep. And like... I hate taking naps. I always wake up with a weird taste in my mouth and feel kind of sick after naps, and I can never fall asleep when I actually want to go to bed later (unless I stayed up all night the night before or am sick, neither of which is the case). I have no idea how that happened. I'm not even that tired, I got a good amount of sleep the previous few nights. And it usually takes me forever to fall asleep. I'm REALLY disoriented from this. When I woke up, all I remember is suddenly being up and looking down and seeing my roommate and her friend looking at me and my first thought was "Why is my roommate getting ready for work with someone else in the room?" I totally thought it was Wednesday morning! So now I feel really weird because I was really sure that Tuesday was over and it was Wednesday now, when... there's still more of Tuesday to go. It's only 10:23 now.

Needless to say, I haven't actually worked on my paper at all today. I was going to, but... I don't know. I kept procrastinating. Hearing that so many people in my class haven't even watched the movie yet, let alone started, makes me feel like I'm not so behind. So I decided just to get my English and Film reading done tonight so I wouldn't have to worry about it tomorrow, and I can spend all tomorrow writing the paper, much like I did with the English paper last Wednesday. Which sucked, but this one is shorter, and I already have a thesis/outline. I just need to start writing.

...I know this is not a very interesting post, but I just feel so weird right now. I think I'm going to watch last night's episode of House and then try to fall asleep. If I can't get to sleep tonight, I'm going to be very pissed at myself.

OMG IS THAT BUSTER BLUTH (Tony Hale) IN FALL OUT BOY'S NEW MUSIC VIDEO FOR THEIR COVER OF "BEAT IT"? PLEASE TELL ME I'M NOT IMAGINING THINGS AND THAT'S TOTALLY HIM BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE THE BEST THING EVER.

Anyways, The Cab's Whisper War is out today! I totally forgot about that until... last night, pretty much. I actually wasn't expecting to like it very much just because... they're kind of too pop-y for my tastes. I know that FOB and related bands can be rather pop-y at times, but... The Cab reminds me of NSYNC way more often and more... blatantly, I guess. And I enjoy listening to old NSYNC every once and awhile, but a lot of that is the nostalgia factor and not so much that it's actually good. But I liked this! It is still pretty pop-y, but it sounds less boy-bandish overall. And I was disappointed looking at the track list before hearing the songs that Singing Myself to Sleep isn't on there because the acoustic version from that radio show that has circled around is my favorite The Cab song, but then it turned out it was, it just had a different name and sounded different. And I like the acoustic more, but I'm happy it was included. Ah new music makes me happy. ...ugh but now I'm considering seeing them at the House of Blues Anaheim in May. Are there still tickets to that? I kind of hope there aren't just because I really can't spend any more money before I know I'll definitely have a job for the summer (even though HOB Anaheim tickets are cheap; I think I saw they were selling for $10? Of course that doesn't include the millions of dollars Ticketmaster charges for convenience fees and all).

Random stuff on last week's Ugly Betty that I meant to mention at some point and forgot about: ( Ugly Betty 2.14 Twenty-four Candles )

Anyways, I got no work done yesterday! Shocking! Totally not fitting to my personality and everything you've seen of how good I am at totally not procrastinating and not writing an 8-page paper the night before it's due! sigh. But I was talking to other people in the class before class started today, and like... no one has actually started writing it. Like, one person has a few pages done, but that's it. There are people who haven't even seen the film we're supposed to analyze yet. So, that makes me feel slightly better about where I am in relation to it being done. In any case, it'll be over with very soon.

Speaking of papers, remember how at the beginning of the semester I was so happy about not having any research papers because it takes me so long to research and I wouldn't have to do that in English and for the Film paper. ...yeah, not so happy about it anymore. It's true that I don't have to spend a day in the library researching, but instead I have to read through an entire book again to find relevant bits of evidence for my English papers or watch a 15-minute movie 10 times and make screencaps of frames and it ends up just taking as long. So, as it turns out, I'd much prefer a research paper. It requires less thinking, and I actually enjoy the research part. Oh well. Not like I can fix that now.

I have a thesis for my film paper! ...that may not sound like a big deal, but after watching the film I'm supposed to analyze (Ritual in Transfigured Time, if you're interested), I was just like... what the hell am I going to say about this? And I'm so used to arguing about how various techniques contribute to form a meaning or about the author's intent in books, but that's totally the opposite of what my professor wants, since he wants us not to write about story at all and instead write as if I were a Russian Formalist. And it's just... very difficult to get my brain into this other mindset. But I wrote a thesis, which I didn't think was incredibly good but... basically the conclusions I had reached, e-mailed it to my professor, and he said it would work. So yay! Now... I just have 2000 words to write. Joy. Well, Less than 2000. My thesis is some amount of words (like... 30-50, probably). So, 1950-70 words left. And at least I have three whole days to write it, rather than just one day, like with the (longer) English paper.

I also got my last abnormal psych test back, and I got a 95, and I had expected to do worse on it than previous tests since I was more rushed for time than usual (I got 94s on the previous two tests), so I was pleasantly surprised by that. That class is already my absolutely favorite, and it doesn't hurt that I'm going to get an A pretty easily in it, unless I horribly screw up the final test next week. The rest of my classes... not going that well. Optimistic predictions would be 2 A-s and a B+, but it's more likely to be a B and two B+s. Oh well. That's still pretty good.

So yeah. Feeling mostly positive, at least for now. Bizarrely enough, the thing that's actually making me feel more negative is TV! Specifically, ( Brothers and Sisters 2.14: Double Negative )

Anyways, a week and a half until I'm done with my first year of college! I can't wait. This summer is going to be awesome.

...it snowed yesterday. What the hell? This is the last weekend of April! It will be May very shortly! How can it still be acting like it's winter?!

Anyways, now that I've gotten to relax for a day or so, I get to freak out about my film paper that's due Thursday. It's 2000 words, which isn't too terrible, but... I've also never written a paper like this before. ugh. And it's 35% of my grade, which seems ridiculously high to me. And I really should have worked on it Friday and Saturday, but I didn't. God, can this semester just be over already? At least the days left are down to single digits, now. (Well, only counting until classes are over. I will have a 4-page paper to write due Thursday, but that's not too big of a deal, although I'm sure I'll freak out about it when I get to that point.) My mom's going to arrive around noon on May 8th (my dad's in the middle of a trial so he can't come) and we'll be going back on May 10th, leaving a few days to pack up my stuff and deloft my bed and all that. I'll probably end up staying at the hotel with her during those couple nights. I cannot wait until then.

Anyways, tagged by lulu99:
Name ten fictional characters you'd sleep with in no particular order, and then tag five others.
1. Jim Halpert (The Office US)
2. John Crichton (Farscape)
3. Ten (Doctor Who)
4. Pacey Witter (Dawson's Creek)
5. Ned (Pushing Daisies)
6. Mal Reynolds (Firefly)
7. Ben Covington (Felicity)
8. Logan Echolls (Veronica Mars)
9. Michael Bluth (Arrested Development)
10. Dexter Morgan (Dexter)

I can't remember who's done this meme, so just do it if you want to!

Today was registration for classes next semester! ( Fall 2008 Class Schedule )

Anyways, decided to stop watching My Name Is Earl. I don't know that anyone on my flist actually still watches MNIE anymore. It was good for awhile, but this season has just been really eh, especially since the return from the strike. I was already considering dropping it, but now that 30 Rock is after The Office, I feel like I would have to make an extra effort to watch it, and I just don't care enough to.

Finally, answers to the truth and lies meme from earlier this week! ( Truth and Lies Meme Answers )

Ok, seriously. If you try to schedule a group discussion and one of the members of the group is like "Hey, I can't make that time, can we meet another time?" since the person needs to be at the meeting because they're supposed to write a reaction paper discussing what the group talked about at the meeting and you're like "Well, everyone else can make it. Can I just e-mail you the notes about what we discussed?" and the person agrees, you know when would be a really good time to send the notes? HINT: THE ANSWER IS NOT THAT YOU STILL HAVEN'T SENT IT AT 11:30 PM THE NIGHT BEFORE IT'S DUE.

UGH. I HATE this week SO MUCH.

I AM DONE WITH MY PAPER. OH GOD. It actually did not take as long as I expected, but that's not saying much, since I was picturing myself being up until 5 AM, still writing it, and getting like 2 hours of sleep. I'm actually really proud with parts of it and the overall conclusion I come to, but... the execution is pretty crappy. I don't actually know that it would be much better even if I did spend more than a day on it, though. Oh well.

Ugh, I've felt kind of nauseous for the past few days, though. ( Babbling about caffeine! )

Anyways, dilemma for tonight: stay up until midnight watching The Office and 30 Rock (I don't have a TV, I have a Slingbox connected on my computer to my TV/DVR player back at home, but... that's in PST rather than whatever I'm in here (Central? I don't know, it's 2 hours later) so all my shows end up being later, which sucks) or go to sleep early to try to make up for getting no sleep the past few days? I'm not sure how likely it is that I'll be able to stay awake that long. We'll see, I guess.

My English professor was mentioning how she was going to a conference this weekend in Long Beach and I was like "...Long Beach? California?" and she was all "Yes!" and I was like "I LIVE NEAR THERE." Ugh. Jealous. But I will be back there in two weeks at least.

(I promised no more talking about school stuff in my last post but... oops? Next post will totally be school-free. Probably. And then I'll go back to bitching about school for the next week and a half.)

I am so pissed off at my Drugs and Society professor. I mentioned that on Friday everyone in class thought the test was the following Friday and he was like "What, no, it's totally Wednesday! We start presentations Friday!" which totally screwed up my plan for how I was going to get work done during the week. So today I get an e-mail from him and it's like "Oops! As it turns out, originally I planned for 9 group presentations, but we ended up having only 8 groups, which left us with one less day of presentations, meaning group presentations start Monday, not Friday! But we're still totally going to have our test on Wednesday and on Friday we'll just do class evaluations." asl;kjf UGH. The test TOTALLY could've been on Friday (as it originally was supposed to be!) and when I was in the middle of the e-mail, I was like "Oh god please let him have moved the test please please please." You have no idea how much added stress the test being on Wednesday caused me. I've had this feeling of dislike for him and the class for most of the semester that I haven't been able to figure out since he's usually pretty cool and the class isn't that intense, and then things like this happen and my gut reaction of dislike is TOTALLY validated.

Also, am I the only one who doesn't like getting letter grades for things instead of percentages? Like... final grade can be a letter grade, but it makes it really difficult figuring out what grade I have in the class if we're given letter grades on assignments. Like in English, I was trying to figure out what grade I have now that we were given our revisions back (A- on that, btw! Which I totally didn't deserve for the amount of effort I put into it and the amount of changes I made, but whatever, very happy. I didn't not expect my grade on that to be better than the first draft), and I'm like "Ok, so the first draft is worth 15%, and I got a B+ on that. So 15% of a B+ is... what?" I need percentages! This is only made worse when professors grade with half grades, like A/A- or A-/B+. Like, how the hell do I figure out my grade with that?

Anyways, yes, I am posting when I A) still haven't started writing my paper or collected any sort of evidence to support my thesis or even have written a thesis, and B) still haven't finished studying for my Drugs and Society test tomorrow. But I needed a short break from studying or else I was going to go crazy. And I needed to bitch about this stuff (more the first than the second). I promise my next post is not going to be about school at all, except possibly relief over everything this week being done.

Heh, I totally overheard this conversation at breakfast:

Girl: [talking about English class] Yeah, the professor started the first class with the words "Let's go" on the board, and now the last words of this play we're reading are "Let's go."
Guy: What play?
Girl: Oh, it's this short play about these two guys... what is it called?
Girl 2: [apparently also in class] Waiting for Godot.
Girl: Right! By William Beckett.
Girl 2: Samuel Beckett.
Girl: Oh, right. Why did I think William?

This is only so amusing because that EXACT SAME NAME MIX-UP happened to me last Thursday, as I already mentioned. I don't think this girl was confusing the names because of The Academy Is...'s lead singer, but I still found it amusing.

Meme time! ( Eight truths, two lies )

Anyways, I still haven't started my English paper (due Thursday), started studying for my Drugs and Society test (Wednesday), or finished studying for the film vocab test (tomorrow!). ugh. So, time to do some work, I suppose.

Very brief random comments on TV from the past few days:

( Battlestar Galactica 4.03: The Ties that Bind )

( Doctor Who Season 4 )

( Skins 2.10: Everyone )

So I was really proud of myself for memorizing the 126 film terms I have to memorize for my film vocab test on Tuesday yesterday afternoon. I knew there were a couple of terms left in the book that I hadn't made flashcards for, but I thought I had it mostly done. So after dinner, I started making flashcards for the terms I had missed, and it turned out I had 48 terms left to memorize. ...ha. Awesome.

Add this on to the fact that my final Drugs and Society test was supposed to be this coming Friday and I had my studying for that, this film vocab test, and writing my English paper all planned out for this weekend until the professor was like "What, Friday? Sorry, it's on Wednesday! We start presentations on Friday!" which NO ONE in the class had a CLUE about, and the fact that I have no idea what book I'm writing about for my paper, this weekend is going totally wonderfully.

Also, yesterday was Springfest, where a bunch of bands play all day and there are bouncy castles and... that's about all I could tell from watching from the windows in the library. Which would have been totally fun to go to, except I was stuck in the library all afternoon studying. ugh. Why did it have to be THIS weekend. Worst weekend EVER.

Anyways, time to finish memorizing film vocab, make and memorize Drugs and Society flashcards, and write my English paper. Have I mentioned how AWESOME these last few weeks of the semester are? The only thing getting me through is knowing that there are now only 2 1/2 weeks left of school and the past few weeks have gone by really quickly, so hopefully these weeks will go by just as fast.

Ok, so this is only going to be interesting to people who know anything about bandom:

So, I'm reading this article in English, and it mentions Beckett, the author who wrote Waiting for Godot (among other things, but that's where I know him from). It doesn't mention his first name, and for some reason I was trying to remember what his first name was. So I'm like "William! William Beckett!" but then I was like "...ok, that name sounds familiar, but not right." And then further into the article it mentions him again and this time says Samuel Beckett (which, what? Isn't one of the rules of formal writing that the first time you mention a person, you use the first and last name, and then later in the article you can use either, generally the last name? Stupid article). So I was like "Oh, right, of course. So why does William Beckett sound so familiar?" And then I had the realization of where I know that name from, and I was just like [facepalm]. Literally, I facepalmed in class. I'm lucky that we were all supposed to be reading the article so no one was watching me, because I looked kind of ridiculous.

Like, I don't think about bandom very often, I don't post about it very often, but it clearly has made its way into my subconscious. This is also evidenced by the fact that when I hear the name "Spencer," I immediately think of Spencer Smith and not my roommate, who also happens to be named Spencer and who I see every day and speak to on a regular basis and whose name is on our door and so on. ugh.

Anyways, my Film Analysis class was canceled today since the professor is at some thing in Washington from yesterday to Monday, which is awesome. I'm probably only going to use it to play around on LJ and the internet and not actually get work done, but whatever. It's a nice break. And I'm not going to have any breaks for the next few weeks, particularly this weekend (ugh, I'm so looking forward to this weekend being over. It's going to suck so much), so I might as well relax a little now.

I stayed away from my computer yesterday since I was studying pretty much non-stop for the test I had today, which was not fun. I pretty much lived in the library yesterday (and, I mean, I like the library, but it's obviously more fun to be in my room on my computer than studying for hours in the library). But it's over with now, and it's one less major thing I have left to do this semester. Now that Monday and Tuesday are done with, I'm feeling much more relaxed. This will probably last until Friday, when I have to study for my Film Analysis vocab test (there are 10 words on the test we have to define out of a hundred possible terms from the glossary of our book. And I know none of them. ugh. Like, it won't be hard to do well on the test, it's just incredibly time-consuming, which sucks), Drugs and Society test (this one isn't as bad since a quarter of the test is on psychotherapeutic drugs and... I'm in abnormal psych right now so I know what drugs are used to treat depression and schizophrenia and the side effects of the drugs and what neurotransmitters they act on and all that), and English paper (8 pages, due a week from tomorrow, don't have a topic yet. Awesome).

This week is both the last week of Wind Ensemble and my psych discussion group. It sucks because, as I've repeatedly mentioned, I love my psych discussion group, and I like Wind Ensemble a good amount (I mean, obviously, or else I wouldn't be doing it). But that'll free up 6-7 hours each week, which will be especially necessary next week when I have a million things to do. And both of those being over for the semester means that the semester is very close to being over, which is awesome.

I haven't watched the Skins finale yet. I have no idea when that's going to happen. blah. The same goes for whatever other TV shows are new this week and the next few weeks. I'll definitely be watching Battlestar Galactica, just because... what else am I going to be doing from midnight to 1 AM on Friday night/Saturday morning? And Doctor Who, since I don't have the willpower to work all day long on a Saturday. I never did schoolwork on Saturdays in high school (except maybe the weekend before finals), so I still have a hard time adjusting to having to do work on Saturdays so I don't want to kill myself Sunday/during the week when I have a lot of work to do. But I'm not sure about the rest. We'll see.

Today is the first day since October I've worn short sleeves outside in Minnesota. I'm trying not to get too excited about it since it was sleeting and awful last week, and the weather keeps teasing me. Still, it's nice for today.

Lastly, handwriting meme. I've been meaning to do it for awhile, so... there it is! Exciting.

lkjsdf done with my abstract film! It's pretty crappy and it'll probably get a C, but whatever, it's DONE. This may have been stressing me out more than any other thing I had left to do this semester. ...that actually may not be true, since I'm stressing out pretty hard about my Film Analysis paper and my English paper that's due next week, but whatever. It was stressing me out a lot, and now it's done! Just... 80,000 more crappy things left to do this semester!

Ok something I noticed that I don't understand: for the past week or so, I've noticed people coming into my abnormal psych class incredibly late. Like... 45 minutes late. I mean, why even bother coming to class at that point? Maybe if it was Film Analysis, which is 2 1/2 hours long, it would make sense. But... abnormal psych is an hour. There's really no point. I wouldn't even come into class past 15 minutes after it started, let alone 45 minutes. I don't know. It makes no sense to me.

I like that when my workload increases, I have the urge to post more. I mean, I said in my last post that my posting was going to be pretty sporadic for the next few weeks, and it probably will be, but it's not because I don't want to post more. It's not even really because I don't have the time, because I can obviously make the time. It's more that I don't have the time to think about anything other than schoolwork, so all my posts consist of "lkjf HATE SCHOOL" which... gets pretty boring after awhile. So I try to limit the amount of posts you have to read about how much I hate all the schoolwork I have left to do. ...even though I still post ridiculous amounts about that as it is.

Anyways, THREE WEEKS LEFT. Well, three weeks and two days. But three weeks sounds better. And those last two days aren't going to be much of anything. The second of the days I don't even have classes; I'm just sticking around because it's the only time I'll have to write my last English paper (due on May 8th). Ugh cannot wait until this summer. There are so many awesome things happening. sigh. I want it to be May now.

I'm debating whether to go to English tomorrow or not. I haven't done the reading yet and it's going to take me two hours and it's already 8:30. I have a test in abnormal psych on Wednesday and I have 15 more flashcards than I normally have for tests in that class and I have very little time tomorrow to study due to various classes and my discussion group and such. We can miss up to two classes without having a reason and not have our grade docked (and I haven't missed any so far). So, if I ditch, I both have more time tonight to study and more time tomorrow morning when I should be in class to study. On the other hand, I really don't understand the book we're reading right now, and we have a paper due in a week that she might discuss in class. ugh. Decisions. I know that ditching class isn't a big deal and people do it all the time, but I'm the kind of person where I just... can't miss class. I'm always terrified that I'm going to miss something major. I'm very tempted now, though.

Ugh. I feel like I'm never going to catch up on sleep. Thursday I woke up an hour earlier than normal because I didn't finish my reading for class since I kind of forgot there was reading in Film Analysis and then I went to sleep late that night because I stayed up watching The Office and 30 Rock. Then last night I stayed up until 1 AM watching Battlestar Galactica. My roommate spent the night at a friend's, and so she forgot to turn off her alarm that was set for 6 AM, so that went off this morning, which was awesome. It took me at least 2 minutes to figure out where the beeping noise was coming from. Then I waited for my roommate to turn it off when I realized it wasn't my alarm, before remembering that she wasn't in the room. So then I had to reach over and turn it off myself, except it was 6 AM and I am blind without my contacts, so I just hit a bunch of random buttons until it stopped. And I couldn't really sleep in this morning because I have a bunch of work to do. sigh.

Someone seriously needs to remind me of the fact that my parents are paying a lot of money for me to be here and they would probably not appreciate it if I failed all my classes and I should probably actually do the work I have to do and stop procrastinating. Ugh. I got NOTHING done yesterday. I was supposed to make flashcards for a test and plan out my abstract film, nothing really that intense or that would require a lot of effort, but I didn't even make an attempt at doing any of it. So now I have even more work than I had already planned on doing for today. Awesome. I am so sick of school. Three and a half weeks left. sigh.

The next few weeks, I'm probably going to go back to posting rather sporadically, more like once or twice every week rather than every day or every other day. There's just so much stuff going on, and it's not even that I won't have the time, but I won't have the brain space to devote to thinking up what to post about or remembering to post. And any posts I do make will probably be me just bitching about school, which I know is fascinating. I will be happier and make more fun posts once the semester is over (May 8th! I will be so happy when it's May 8th, you have no idea).

lksdjflkj I am in SUCH a bad mood.

So, you know last week how I was excited how I got a good draw number and it meant that I wouldn't have to be in Dupre, which have the worst singles and are smaller than prison cells and the school actually pays a fine each year because they're so small but it's cheaper to pay the fine than renovate the building? GUESS WHERE MY ROOM NEXT YEAR IS GOING TO BE?

( Excessively long ranting about my room and school in general. )

Also, ok, WHAT THE HELL, WEATHER? It started raining, which was fine (kind of nice, actually), but then it started snowing, and then raining, and it's been like... sleeting? Is I guess what they call it? since like 5:30. It is awful. The wind is ridiculous and my umbrella kept flipping inside out wherever I'd go, and the wind kept changing direction, so I'd have to change my umbrella to be against the wind so it wouldn't do that. And tonight we're supposed to get 6 inches of snow. WHAT THE HELL. IT'S SPRING. IT'S APRIL.

I was going to get work done tonight and not watch The Office or 30 Rock, but I just... cannot get anything done in this frame of mind tonight. So I'm going to shower and then watch 30 Rock and The Office and then go to sleep. I am going to regret this tomorrow and this weekend when I have more work to get done, but whatever. There's no way I'm getting anything done now.

Today has been made of EPIC FAIL.

Ugh. I've just kind of felt like crap for the past few days. My abstract film is due a week from today, and it's just stressing me out ridiculous amounts. I tried all weekend to come up with an idea and I just couldn't figure out anything. I finally just thought of something this morning and developed it and I talked it over with my professor and it seems like it'll work? Except it seems kind of basic and obvious and boring. But at this point, I don't really care. When I was talking to him, he was like "It seems like you're really stressed out about this" and I was like "Well, yeah. This is like one of my least favorite things to do" (ok, I didn't quite say that, but I said that I've always disliked making films) and he was like "Don't be stressed! This is supposed to be fun! Now I can understand stressing out about the paper..." and then I was like "Oh no, I'm stressed out about that too. You just haven't assigned that yet, so I'm prioritizing stressing out over the film." But he said he can talk to me about the paper when he assigns it and get me less stressed out about that too, which would be good. I just hate the rest of this semester. There is just so much crap left. And I have this list of all the stuff I'm worried about, all the major assignments I have left in the semester, and after 2 weeks, I've crossed out 2 out of 12. And the two things I was probably less stressed about than anything else. I just need this semester to be over now. Thinking about the next 4 weeks makes me feel like throwing up.

Anyways, meme time to get me to stop stressing out for a few minutes and just relax and such. This is the meme about usernames and journal titles and all that.

( Meme )

Ok, now I'm going to watch Skins and then go to dinner and then maybe get some work done before my psych discussion group (we're watching Who's Eating Gilbert Grape tonight which I've been wanting to see for ages, so I'm really excited about that).

Finally! The photo meme! Image-heavy (obviously).

( Photo Meme )

Apparently Peter Berg is coming to speak at graduation here in May. If you don't know who he is, he's been in various movies that you can find on imdb (none of them I've seen), but more importantly, he wrote the Friday Night Lights movie screenplay, is involved in the development of the show, and he directed both the movie and the pilot episode of FNL. It turns out that he went to my school, which I feel like I knew before but forgot. Unfortunately graduation is at least a week after I'm planning on leaving, so I don't get to hear him speak. Pretty cool, though.

( Torchwood 2.13 )

I watched the season premiere of Battlestar Galactica and totally loved it, but I actually think I have more to say about the last 15 minutes of the season 3 finale. I watched the end of the finale right before the premiere since it was showing on SciFi, and I didn't talk much about the episode when it originally aired, but holy crap, the end just kills me. I totally just have goosebumps for the entire last quarter of that episode. Everything is just brilliant and amazing and reminds me why I love the show so much. And now I desperately need to rewatch the entire series, especially since I've only seen season 1 and the first half of season 2 twice, and season 3 and the second half of season 2 once. This is, of course, in no way feasible considering the ridiculous amount of work I have left this semester. I'm hoping to be able to do it once the semester is over. I should be able to, but there are like a million shows I've gotten the urge to rewatch in the past few months, so I don't know if I'll still want to in a month.

I've actually managed to get some work done today already, which I'm really proud of. I usually only get anything done on Saturdays if I have a paper due the following week. So far I've finished the reading for Film Analysis that... ok, was due Thursday (but I didn't have time to finish it during the week because of my Drugs and Society test and... my incessant procrastinating), but I've also finished the reading for Engilsh that's due on Tuesday. I'm going to keep working on various things until dinner (so, another 2-3 hours) and then I can relax for the rest of the night and hopefully have less work to do on Sunday and during the week as a result. I totally said I was going to post the photo meme today and that's clearly not happening. The plan is to post it tomorrow, but at this rate, it'll probably be up by, like, July. ugh. I fail.

Impatiently waiting for the Doctor Who premiere to pop up! I want it desperately (even though I'm supposed to still work for another few hours and wouldn't be able to watch it until after dinner anyways).

So the past two days have been a mix of complete and utter not fun and a few good moments. I studied pretty much non-stop for this Drugs and Society test I had today, I didn't even check my flist (which was very painful, let me tell you), and I still ended up doing worse on the multiple choice than on the last test, which I didn't study at all for and planned to drop. ugh. My only hope is that the curve is ridiculously nice. sigh.

Also, btw, if you're in a class that is 2 1/2 hours long and the professor has already held you over 10 minutes, please DO NOT raise your hand to ask a question to delay us leaving another 5 minutes. Especially when the question is stupid, not really relevant to anything we're discussing, and you could've easily asked it after class. AND especially when certain people in the class seriously need to run back to their rooms and study ridiculous amounts for a test before going to two discussion groups that'll last a total of 2 hours that night. ugh.

...ok, that was kind of all the not fun, but it was pretty pervasive and felt like there was a lot more suckitude going on. On the good side, we got our room draw numbers, and I got 63 (out of 500)! This is VERY good. I'm planning on getting a single. I got along great with my roommate this semester, but I miss having my own room. There are just a lot of little things you take for granted when living alone, like being able to turn out the light and go to sleep whenever you want and not worrying that your roommate wants to stay up really late/go to sleep really early, or being able to change whenever and not worry about your roommate suddenly walking in. Anyways, I was afraid I'd get a terrible number and get stuck in Dupre, which is like... seriously, the singles are smaller than prison cells. I'm not exaggerating. The school actually has to pay a fine every year because the rooms are so small and go against... some sort of code, but it actually costs less for them to pay the fine every year than remodel the building. Plus, the beds there are lofted and you can't deloft them, and one of the reasons I really want a single is being able to deloft my bed and not worry about space issues (since as annoying as it can be at times, they do save loads of space). AND there are no sinks in the roomsin Dupre, which is extremely inconvenient. My other concern about getting a higher number is that the room draw is on Thursday night when I have my discussion group, and 0-250 go from 8:00-8:30 while 250-500 go from 8:30-9:00 and my group is at 8:30 and I've already ditched one meeting and I can't ditch another, so I was worried about that. But I should be done well before 8:30. Ah, I'm so happy about this.

Also good were both my discussion groups last night, despite them taking up time I could've used to study. The abnormal psych one continues to be the academic highlight of my week. I also had a meeting with the people in my Drugs and Society group which went really well, thankfully. Most of them knew each other beforehand so I felt kind of awkward in the group at first, but it's going better now.

Also good: today the high is supposed to be 59! Reasonable weather! Right now it's only 49, but that's still way better than what it was just a few weeks ago. I am pleased that it's finally resembling spring and I can wear fewer layers.

Um, what else? I think that was all the good. Anyways, now at least I can catch up with my flist and watch TV shows I missed (pretty much just Miss Guided and The Daily Show/Colbert Report. And maybe My Name Is Earl? Did that come back this week? I feel like I heard it did. I'll check) and relax for a day. Photo meme will totally be posted tomorrow. Then the rest of the day will be spent getting back on track with schoolwork, because I've just been awful about it recently, and the next few weeks are going to be absolute hell if I don't get a handle on it. Well, they'll probably already be absolute hell, but at least they'll be slightly better if I start working this weekend.

4 1/2 more weeks of school. sigh. I look forward to it being over.

So for the millionth time this year, the fire alarm went off at 1 AM last night. lkjsdf HOW IS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE. I swear, I don't even know how many times it's gone off this year it's gotten to be so many. At least 5. It wasn't the worst of the alarms we've had since I had proper shoes, a heavy coat, was not in the middle of taking a shower when it went off, it was probably in the 30s, and 1 AM is a little better than 5 AM. Although I had JUST managed to fall asleep, and it takes me forever to get to sleep, so I was not pleased about that. And it did suck that it was on a school night. I really don't understand how the fire alarm can go off so many times in one year. I swear, it's only our dorm too. Like, the dorm next to ours went off ONCE for something that wasn't a drill (and even then, we hard the alarms and someone said they saw smoke on the other side of the hall since like... it went off because someone burned a bag of popcorn and there was smoke from that and it came through the window in the hall on my floor, and so anyways, we ended up evacuating anyways, even though it wasn't our building) and ours has gone off a million times. sigh.

How exactly did it get to be April? I'm pretty sure March just started. This semester seems to be flying by which is good since I'm only really enjoying one class. And April means that there are only 4-5 weeks left in the semester, which is awesome. What is less awesome is that I have like 5 times as much work in these 4-5 weeks than I did in the first 8-9 weeks of the semester. ugh. Anyways, expect much more bitching about school and the amount of work I have (ugh, I'm only a freshman. I can't imagine how much more work I'm going to have the rest of my time here. Hopefully I just chose really crappy classes this semester) for the next few weeks. I know that's pretty much all I post about now as it is, but... it's probably going to get worse. Joy.

I think all the guys in my English class are starting to feel weird about the fact that there are like 15 girls and 5 guys in that class because all of a sudden, they're all starting to grow beards. It's kind of hilarious. At the start of the semester there was like... one, maybe two guys with just a little scruff, not full beards, but now all of them have like... full-on beards. And it's only been in the last week or so.

I think I'm starting to get into the habit of posting every other day, and I'm afraid that's going to go into every two days, and so on until I never post anymore again. sigh. I'm fighting against it. The amount of schoolwork I have to do in the next 5 weeks is not going to help matters any. On the plus side, I'm pretty much done with my major English rewrite that's due Thursday (I just need to edit a line or two and make sure I didn't add any typos when revising). On the minus side, that was probably the lowest on the list of assignments I have in the next 5 weeks that are causing me stress and anxiety. We got this 35-second abstract film assigned in Film Analysis today that's due in two weeks that I am absolutely freaking out about. But I still have stuff to do for Thursday and Friday, so I'm trying to freak out about one assignment at a time. I can probably start worrying about it over the weekend.

Oh, but also on the plus side, I realized that my English paper that's due Thursday is 2100 something words and it's only a little over 6 pages, and the Film Analysis paper I'm going to have to do at the end of the semester is supposed to be 2000-2250 words and I estimated that to be about 10 pages when apparently it's more like 6-8. So that's good, at least. Slightly less pages I thought I would have to write. And it's kind of weird, it feels like I have a lot more papers and writing to do this semester, but I actually have fewer total pages to write than last semester. I guess it's just because my classes as a whole are harder than my classes last semester, so I feel like I'm doing more writing or I'm going to have to do more writing.

I watched Skins and it kind of killed me, but I don't really have any more in-depth thoughts than that. I love Chris and Jal loads, though. And Maxxie's new boyfriend! I saw that in the unseen Skins and I was wondering if he'd show up in the real show. That makes me happy.

Time for getting some work done before my psych discussion group that's in less than an hour!

ugh why is it SNOWING? Seriously, don't get me wrong, I like the snow, but it got up to the 50s this weekend! My roommate and I opened our windows for the first time since October! I heard someone saying when I was outside, "This would've been really welcome in December, but NOT NOW." Agreed SO MUCH. It's just such the wrong timing for it. I would've even welcomed it in January or February (I mean, it's 34 degrees, which is rather warm out compared to what it was in those months), but all the snow on the ground had melted (except for a few patches in the shade) and I was able to wear just a t-shirt and sweatshirt outside and I took off two of the blankets on my bed and didn't get cold. The weather needs to stop teasing me! I keep thinking "Oh! It's getting warmer! Maybe I'll be able to get dressed without planning what I'm going to wear based on the weather!" and then this. sigh.

This weekend is going to be so ridiculously awesome in terms of TV. Battlestar Galactica premiere, Torchwood finale, and Doctor Who premiere! I cannot wait.

Anyways, I have a million things to do this week, and I wish I could say that's why I wasn't around here yesterday, because I was working hard, but... that's not even remotely true. I got so little done yesterday. I don't even know how I passed my time. I remember watching some clips on youtube for a few hours. ugh. I don't even know. And of course I also haven't uploaded the photos from the photo meme yet (although I have taken them!) and I doubt those will go up before Friday. sigh. Goals for today: study for Drugs and Society test and do massive rewrite on my English paper that is due Thursday that I keep putting off. Only 5 weeks left and then I can relax!

Ok so there's this Prison Break spoiler going around for next season and I really need to post about it. ( Prison Break )

I watched last night's episodes of Miss Guided, and I'm really enjoying that show so much more than I thought I would. It really sucks that there are only two episodes left. I hope it's picked up for next year, but I'm not very optimistic. I also read that The Return of Jezebel James was canceled which... yeah. Not very surprising. I'm almost surprised Fox aired as much as it did (an entire 3 episodes). Not very disappointed, other than not having Michael Arden on my screen every week anymore. But the rest of the show was just a chore to get through, so whatever. Not a huge loss.

Anyone else want to give me Top 5s? I want to make images to go with them, so I probably won't post them until tomorrow, so if you feel like giving me more top 5s, that would be awesome.

Ugh ok I really have nothing to say, but I already didn't post yesterday, and I'm afraid not posting 2 days in a row will lead me to return to only posting like once a week and I like being more involved in LJ and such. But anyways, here's a meme, so I have something to post about:

Comment to this post with a Top Five you would like to see me post about (with pictures, if applicable), and I will post it in my next post. Feel free to give me multiple lists to do!

It would be awesome if you'd ask for stuff! Especially because it'll give me a reason to procrastinate writing my 2-page reaction paper for my abnormal psych group that's due tonight (when I also have class in half an hour for 2 1/2 hours and I wanted to go to this psychology career talk thing from 7-8:30 and it's due at 8:30). Clearly I need MORE things to do. That makes the most sense.

Wheee I got Pretty. Odd. today! I totally didn't expect it to come until, like, Thursday, because Amazon claimed it wouldn't be delivered until Wednesday and the school post office is so. slow. that I figured it would take a full other day to actually get it to me. But I checked my box after class and it was there! And, ok, I've been listening to the leak pretty much non-stop since last Tuesday (I did stop to fall in love with The Hush Sound, though. I now have all three of their albums), but it's still exciting to have the actual CD in my hand. And I can listen to the songs on shuffle with other songs in between! And listen to individual songs on repeat! This might not seem like a big deal, but there are some songs that I just wanted to listen to on repeat for like an hour (mostly Folkin' Around. I think that's my favorite on the CD, partially just because it's just so short and every time I listen to it I feel like there needs to be more. If that makes any sense. And also partially just because it's awesome), and I got tired of listening to all the songs in the same order over and over. And now my Honda Civic Tour playlist is complete! (Well, I only have one Phantom Planet song. But whatever.)

As I mentioned above, I now have all three The Hush Sound albums and I am totally loving them. I think Goodbye Blues is the best, then Like Vines, and then So Sudden, but I still love them all. And ha, I had such a stupid moment when I was listening to Like Vines for the first time. Don't Wake Me Up came on and at the end I was like "Huh. Bob sounds kind of like Patrick here." And then I went through the album a second time and it came up and I was like "HOLY SHIT THAT IS PATRICK." And I TOTALLY KNEW BEFOREHAND that he produced that CD AND I heard that he sang on one of the songs. AND I EVEN THOUGHT "WOW THIS VOICE SOUNDS LIKE PATRICK'S ISN'T THAT INTERESTING?" and it TOTALLY didn't connect. A similar thing happened when listening to The Cab's new song last night. I recognized Patrick's voice right off the bat (and flailed accordingly), but it took me a second time to recognize Brendon's. And this was after listening to the leak of Pretty. Odd. all afternoon and hearing his part and thinking "This voice sounds REALLY FAMILIAR and totally isn't from The Cab BUT I DON'T KNOW WHO." ugh. I fail.

Anyways. Non-bandom related things now! Well, just one thing. ( Torchwood 2.12 )

By the way, I totally am still planning on posting the photos from the photo meme, even though it may appear that I totally forgot about it. I was going to do it during break, but I kept telling myself that I had time left during break and that I didn't need to do it yet and... then break was over. But I will do it! Soon! Just... not now. And probably not tomorrow or Thursday. But definitely by Friday! Probably.

Back at school now. Not very happy about it. I've already bitched several times about how much work I'm going to have to do in the next 6 weeks, but there's also the return to 30 degree weather (which would have been warm to me a few weeks ago, but I just spent the week in CA, ok? It was 80 on Saturday and Sunday. It was a lot of fun figuring out what to wear Sunday for both 80 and 30 degree weather) and the fact that I'm just tired of 3/4 of my classes in general and I just want it to be summer (I kind of can't wait to get a job just because I feel like I've been spending so much money and haven't been earning any, so it'll be nice for that to happen, and there are the two concerts I'm going to that I'm ridiculously looking forward to). sigh.

My return home was only made worse by the fact that taxi driver who took me from the airport to school had no idea how to get to the street I said. And the thing is, he was on the right street, all he had to do was keep going and then it would intersect with the street my dorm is on, turn left, and... it's right there. But he was like "Grand intersects with Fairvew right?" and... I don't know the neighborhood very well, so I was just like "...uh. The place where I want to go is on Grand right between Macalester St. and Snelling" and Snelling was the street he was on, so of course he took that to mean he should get off Snelling and go onto Fairvew and then he somehow managed to miss Grand and we went like twice as far as we normally would have had to and ugh. It pissed me off. Especially because I had to pay for the extra 15 minutes we spent driving around and I then ended up getting back to school 5 minutes too late for dinner in the Campus Center so I had to buy dinner myself. ugh.

Also, I somehow never adjusted the time change from MN to CA, so I kept going to sleep at like midnight and waking up at 7 or 8 AM. But even when I went to sleep later, I would still wake up ridiculously early and not be able to get back to sleep. I thought that would be solved when I came back here, but I went to sleep at midnight and woke up at 6 AM. Which makes no sense, since that's 4 AM CA time. blah.

Anyways. At least I don't have much work to do this week, so I can just kind of get used to being back here and not have to start getting stressed out until next week. I watched Torchwood 2.12 on the plane and I may or may not make a post about it later, but in any case, I totally loved it, especially Ianto's part. I hate that there's only one episode left, but at least Doctor Who is starting up right after it's over.

I went shopping with my mom yesterday and by total accident got a pair of shoes and t-shirt that match perfectly. It's so weird. Photographic evidence! Like, the patches on the shoes and the design on the t-shirt look so good together. I have no idea how that happened. I didn't even realize it until I got home and saw them next to each other. It's fun when that happens!

I watched the two episodes of Miss Guided on Thursday, and the show either got better, or it was funnier than I remembered. I got more used to the confessionals, and I actually laughed out loud several times. Not the best sitcom ever, but it's not bad. Of course, I'm sure it'll be canceled immediately. I also watched the last episode of The Return of Jezebel James, and that show really isn't getting any better. There are only 4 new episodes left, though, and Michael Arden is totally adorable and awesome in his role, so I'll probably end up watching the rest.

I feel like I need to justify my reasons for participating in the LJ strike after reading some of the posts by people who didn't strike. ( LJ Strike Comments )

Going to see In Bruges with my parents today. Ugh, last full day home. I am not looking forward to going back to school. The rest of this semester is going to be hell. Can it be May yet?

I bought The Hush Sound's "Goodbye Blues" on a whim since they're playing Honda Civic Tour and I remember hearing some music of theirs before and kind of liking it and OMG LOVE. I am enjoying this CD SO MUCH. Now I'm looking forward to Honda Civic Tour even more than I was before (and I was looking forward to it before an insane amount as it is).

Ugh, spring break is close to being over. Do not want. I am really dreading the second half of this semester. I have 3 papers (10 pp, 8 pp, and 4 pp), a major rewrite of a paper (the rewrite is worth 15% of my grade, which is actually more than the paper itself was worth), 5 tests, 1 in-class essay, and a short, abstract film. Plus, when I go back, I get to get the grades back from the tests I took right before break! Oh, fun. Speaking of school stuff, midterm grades are in, and so far I have two As, an A-, and a B+. Pretty happy with those grades, but I feel like the A- and the B+ are going to drop by the end of the semester. Oh well.

I have just a few comments on this week's episode of Torchwood. ( Torchwood 2.11 )