Yubsie's Yammerings

So, a random observation...


( Spoilers through the end of BSG )

First year report tomorrow. Which is also my PhD candidacy exam.

I'm gonna sing the doom song now! Doom doom doomity doom!

I mean, I've practiced, I've studied, but I'm still rather nervous and want it to be over. I mean, I'm going to wear clothes that look like I don't muck around in a lab all day, this is serious business!

And yes, Chris and I were totally singing the doom song today. :p

I also had epic four hour help room session. It was really busy for a while. Of course, there was also a really quiet patch in which I managed to read about NMR, which was useful. Next week will be NUTS though, since that's the week of the midterm and we fully expect lots of students to suddenly realize they don't understand things.

Oh. My. God. I predicted DOOOOM from the preview, but not THIS MUCH DOOM.

( The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Lost Boy Part One FLAILING )

(I swear, that con report IS coming, once I get through all these essays and such :p)

Today was the first time I've missed a class for non-G&G reasons the entire time I've been at Mount A. I kinda fell back asleep and missed Japanese, oops. But at least I got the paper passed in, even if I DID switch to thirteen point font to get the thing long enough. :p

I'm definitely glad that the paper I have due tomorrow is ACTUALLY due "before your presentation" so I can hand it in on Monday, because it's nowhere near done. It's one of those super stressful ones that doesn't have a set length so I have no clue how long it needs to be. I found about seven relevant articles, so I'm figuring about a page on each might do it. I don't know. :p

And the Fabricville flyer is definitely not trying to help my stress levels. I open it up and what do I see? Bridal fabric. :p I have a feeling this is going to be like how you don't realize you see someone every day until you've been introduced to them. But I am NOT worrying about wedding plans until my thesis is done, I SWEAR. :p (I HAVE A WEDDING TAG, WHAT THE HELL?)

Speaking of my stress level, tomorrow is the last chance to have Steve look at it before I hand in the final version on the fifteenth. ACK my thesis is due soon.

ANd Ryan, did you get my message that I forgot Friday is the MIDW so Thursday works better?

So, the LARPers? Totally my favourite volunteers right now. They RESPOND! And then they send follow up emails to make sure I got their giant response of DOOM.

seryan, is there any chance I can get you to poke the modelly types about actually answering one of my emails? :p

We've hit a hundred pre-reg for the con. *flail* That's a lot of people and there will be more at the door and pre-reg isn't closed yet and how did this convention get so BIG and why is it less than two months away? *more flailing*

Speaking of flailing... how is the show less than two WEEKS away? *flail* I'm starting to get the hang of the Munchkin dances at least. Tonight's rehearsal should be interesting, since I suspect there will be some re-choreographing going on. EVERY year, there's a number where the score is completely different from the CD. EVERY year, it's one of the big full chorus song and dance numbers. THis year is no exception, with the music for the dance break in "Merry Old Land of Oz" being completely different from what we thought. *flail*

And in slightly less pressing flailing... Grey's ANatomy! *flail* Izzie listened to us, but we're hoping that she'll get off okay because the entire cast was telling her to do the same thing. And George's dad! *flail*

ANd of course, there's also that thesis and grad school thing looming. *UBER FLAIL OF DOOM*

In non flailing news, I wrote all my track notes for my Firefly FST last night, so I should be posting it up soon. There was a lot of not apologizing involved, because I'm NOT sorry for my cracktastic song choices. :p

QotD

Gwenna: Exams eat my sanity. They like it with ketchup.

That about sums my day up. :p

I got all my marking done and out of my life, yay. Then I studied for Spec, went to a Quantum help session and then went home to study for Spec. :p We popped in Disney's Hercules as study noise and played "How many mythological figures are CRYING right now?"

A lot of them. Especially Perseus. "What the hell, Dad? First you give Hercules my horse, now you're giving him my MONSTER? Do I at least get to keep my love interest?"

Then I headed into campus for a spec studying party. I'll be glad when this exam is over. :p

Bah, this Quantum paper is annoying. Because it's Quantum. :p

I got a beautiful NMR of garbage today. It's the most pristine NMR I've gotten in month, and it's junk. But that's okay, because I was running the NMR to double check that that stuff was junk and my product was the stuff I had sitting in chloroform. :p Maybe one of these days I'll actually get this thing isolated. :p

I practiced my thesis presentation for the group today. I was so horribly out of practice and forgot where I was going with my talk. But they thought I had good points ("Which I intend to steal"), I just need to actually know where I'm going with the talk so it isn't all disjointed. :p

Quantum paper
Spec paper
Spec labs
Four exams

I can do this.

We're making slow progress on the spec labs of doom. We keep having sessions to chip away at the questions, but ACK the end of semester is looming. We shall overcome though!

Stupid people on the ANimaritime forum posting about how there are less than a hundred days left until the convention. Don't remind us! It makes us panic! :p Actually, stupid people on the Animaritime forums in general. :p

We had live action night at anime on Saturday, which was fun. We watched My Boss, My Hero which is CRACKTASTICALLY awesome. It's about a Yakuza guy who, in order to prove that he isn't too stupid to become the boss, has to graduate from high school. Needless to say, crack ensues. No wonder the poor guy is confused in his math class though. We're convinced they were making that stuff up because a bunch of people who have taken math at a university level SHOULD be able to understand what's being said in a high school math class. Still, hilariously awesome.

After that, we watched Moonchild. It had Gackt and vampires and a lot of guns. Yeah, that's about all I got out of it. I appreciated the pretty boys, but REALLY not my thing. It was really long too, I was starting to fall asleep by the end. On the plus side, I wrote the ENTIRE draft of my "My Parents Gave Me a STUPID NAME" support group crackfic. Crack is so much faster to write than other things. :p (Like the fic Tess and I finally finished the first scene of :p)

On Sunday, I discovered that if you wear a Mount A sweatshirt to church, random church ladies will ask how your schoolwork is going and offer to pray for your week of DOOM. Quite frankly, I probably need it. After church, I made serious progress on the dishes and managed to clean the disgusting microwave, which makes everything happier.

After my cleaning spree, it was off to quite possibly the most boring karate class ever. Basics weren't so bad, but then it was katta, which made it clear just how SHORT my current katta is. We did discover that parts of the bunkai are NOT particularly effective if you're significantly smaller than your attacker. Try as I might, I couldn't pull off the trip. I suppose the purse smack is still effective though. (No, purse smack isn't the OFFICIAL explanation of what's going on, but it's TOTALLY the best application.)

There was a one hour break in between karate and rehearsal, so I decided that the most effective use of my time would be going to the Cragg to work on my spec assignment. Which I am totally declaring done, incidently. :p Then we had Winkie practice. We learned the choreography for the reprise of "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead". I love this dance, it's so ridiculously easy. I NEVER get the dance at the first rehearsal, but this one was well within my capabilities. It's more than a little cheesy, but that just makes it fun to dance. We're liking this whole "not being enslaved to the WIcked Witch of the West anymore" thing. :p We also reworked our marching formation for the "oh ee yoh" song so that it now actually WORKS and looks really cool. :D

After that, I went home and did schoolwork. Just need to get through this week. I'll do it somehow. :p

Also, Chiron Beta Prime is the only Christmas song I am ready to hear right now. I've started Christmas shopping, but that doesn't change the fact that it's not really Christmassy until after finals are over. However, Chiron Beta Prime kinda fits that mood. "Merry Christmas, from Chiron Beta Prime. Where we're working in a mine. For our robot overlords. Did I say overlords? I mean protectors! Merry Chriiiiiiiiiiistmas, from Chiron Beta Prime!"

*dies* NEver again. NEVER again.

I basically finished my lit review at 6 AM. Then I went to bed for about three hours and got up to read it over and print it. I guess this qualifies as my first academic all nighter? I'd made it to fourth year without ever pulling one, too! But, at least it's done. That's something, right?

Bets on me falling asleep in class today? Though I'm going to stop at Sassy's to buy Bawls on my way there. :p The spec lab should be interesting this afternoon, considering I'm DEFINITELY seeing the fishies. :p

I think the big problem was the three and a half hours spent writing my quantum midterm last night. That thing was LONG. And he asked us to draw an F ORBITAL. F orbitals are HORRIBLY complicated. And I realized afterwards that I drew it completely wrong. :p

Other than my Japanese homework, I have no intention of doing any schoolwork today once I get home. Sims here I come!

And dishes, because they desperately needed doing three days ago. :p

Well, doom was very doomish. There was one synthesis question I was absolutely dreading having show up on the final. Well, guess what one of the synthesis questions was! I did manage to answer it, but I have very little confidence that it was the RIGHT answer. I'm pretty sure I got the first spectroscopy question. The second one, I couldn't make heads or tails of any of the data. I didn't even TRY to interpret the mass spec because I'm so sure my answer is wrong. (Okay, I tried, but I couldn't get it to work... which is probably a clue that my answer is wrong :p) I definitely got one of the mechanisms and MAY have gotten the second. I got the second synthesis, but the first one was the dreaded one. The first theory question, I got bits of but blanked overall... and it's about the same reaction as the question I blanked on on the second midterm. :p Apparently, he likes that reaction, and on some subconcious level, I really don't. :p I NAILED the theory question about NMR though. The final question was also a mechanism. When I realized how to do it, it was SO simple. I may or may not have gotten the bonus question.

In conclusion, I think I passed, but I definitely didn't do great. At least I don't need this course as a pre-req!

Incidently, I don't recall requesting pathetic fallacy. I got it though! As I walked to doom, it was raining. After doom hurt me... it was raining HARDER.