Yubsie's Yammerings

So, how's this icon for a blast from the past? :p

Karate party was crazy fun last night. I got my grading sheet back. I lost marks on basics (possibly for doing "The Wheels on the Bus" :p) and katta (for, well, screwing up :p), but I got full marks on sparring. So apparently I'm fine as long as I'm actually fighting a real person. What does THAT mean? :p

I got an A on my Organic paper, which is obviously super shiny. I just have one assignment and paper left for that class, since there's no exam. The paper is actually all typed up, I just need to go through it tonight to make sure that things like "This structure would make Langler cry" were typed into an IM window and not the paper itself. :p The assignment is going to be a bit of an adventure, since it's a question where the answer isn't actually known.

From the realm of the all pervasive Facebook, one of my students used it to ask me for an extension on her lab report. Is there anything Facebook ISN'T used for? :p (Which reminds me I have to mark the rest today. I managed to borrow Lach's marking scheme, since mine is MIA. :p)

I gave Glen a deadline for my rec letter today, so that will actually get done. I've been getting slightly stressed about the whole thing. Once I have that letter in my hand, I can send my application and nag Steve to mail HIS rec letter himself.

It's been a pretty fun weekend. Friday was a "SIMS D*MMIT" day, which I greatly enjoyed. Simon, amusingly, has been playing piano at his son's house for three solid days. I'm starting to wonder if he's just planning to sit there until Amos and Helen GRADUATE. :p I played Luke's house a bit, he's boring right now, he just skills and goes to work as a Jedi. :p (I don't think I mentioned it, but Han and Leia wound up having a shotgun wedding because they refused to roll a marriage want. And then I cheated so they would have twins. :p) And then I played Daniel and Susan's house. Zoe and Wash now have their first grandchild, Derrial Washburne.

I had to get up early on Saturday because the Honours students were getting together to practice our presentations. Only the Toads and Metalheads showed up, which was somewhat upsetting, since we'd wanted to see what sort of questions people from other areas of chemistry would ask. Still, it was good to get that practice in for next week.

We took a break in the middle to all go down to the Farmer's Market. In four years, I'd never actually gone. I picked up some earrings because it's been ages since I last bought earrings. I also tried a rice dish.

I had a bit of time to kill after that, so I tried to work on my computational assignment. The computers were being ridiculously laggy in the Cragg, so I tried going over to the Avard Dixon computer lab, but it didn't help. I ran into someone from my Japanese class, so we had an awkward conversation in Japanese. (Mostly about coffee and plans for the night :p) Awkward, but still fun.

I gave up on productivity and headed over to the grocery store to pick up some bread. Never made it to the grocery store though, because I wound up hanging out on a roof with Maria, Lily and McGeek. :p

After that, I went to sing karaoke with the con staff, which was an absolute silly blast. Then it was the club meeting, with crazy anime purchase voting. We watched Nurse Witch Komugi (?), which was... strange. The incredible Gatchaman parody made it totally worth it. After that, we watched Castle in the Sky, because you really can't go wrong with a Miyazaki film. :p Even if we did have a field day with the thing about "With our primitive technology, we don't even know what this is made of, metal or ceramics." :p

After the meeting, I found a Firefly/Fiddler on the Roof crossover fic. This led to me wondering who looks at Fiddler on the Roof and decided "you know, that really needs to be crossed over with that space western...".

And then I decided I wanted to make Fiddler on the Roof sims. :p Poor Tevye's brain will so BREAK though. :p

Today was just karate and trying to work on this infernal computational assignment. Oh, and Japanese homework. We decided Wessa did that part, because my kanji look like a six year old wrote them. :p

So, the convention? GEtting RIDICULOUSLY close. *flail* This was the focus of Saturday's staff meeting. :p We watched some pretty fun stuff at the club meeting afterwards. We started out with Fruits Basket, which is really quite cute. Then we watched Paradise Kiss, which I'm very taken with. So Vicki, Patricia, Sara and I are going to marathon it on Friday. After that we watched Tokyo Babylon, which was more than a little crack. We ended with Robotech which was very... mid eighties science fiction. Especially the female characters. UGH the female characters in a lot of older science fiction are awful. I worked on my ficathon fic during that one. I only have one scene left!

When I got home, my interent was acting up, so I read Runaways. When did I end up going to bed Saturday night? Umm... when I ran out of Runaways. Which meant I read volumes 4-6 and desperately tried not to get attached to anyone because I know Joss Whedon is taking over the writing and he's already broken my heart ONCE. Which I suppose helped with the non-Joss related death at the end of six. Favourite line? "Oh, how novel. A Wolverine appearance." Vicki and I always play "Count how many comics include Wolverine" every time we go to Hobbyton. :p Loving this series!

I even actually made it to church the next morning despite the "when I ran out of Runaways" bedtime! And I got to go to karate for the first time in AGES. I wore my shiny green belt for the first time. :D Then I went home and played Sims. I made Star Wars Sims, but didn't have good clothes for Han. I can find clothes for every handmaiden who was in three frames of a deleted scene, but no Han Solo. What gives?

VIcki and I watched some Sailor Moon on Sunday, which is always fun... even if they're currently in a "collect seven plot coupons and then send away to the creators for a story development" arc. :p Also, I've said it once, I'll say it again: DUDE! How is ZOicite a DUDE? It's not just the hair, it's the BODY LANGUAGE!

On Monday, I discovered that water is totally my new favourite solvent. My reaction crashed out and was practically CLEAN! *Ewok dance*

Today I had fun writing my Japanese assignment. We're supposed to write about our activities this week. Trouble is, we have a really limited vocabulary, so I sound like I'm around six years old. I don't even know any adjectives, so I can talk a lot about what I ate, but I can't say that it was good. :p

My internet's been really on the blink, but Doug talked me through fixing some settings over the phone, so hopefully that will straighten itself out soon.

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!"

Rainy Mondays are really not fun. It poured basically all day, which made going back and forth to campus unpleasant.

Natasha and I were the ignored middle children at karate yesterday. During what was theoretically the upper belts class, Jerrod went over basic stuff with the white belts and the other two brown belts went off to do their kata. Natasha and I had been working on our katta for the previous HOUR, so when left to our own devices, we climbed up on the heater to stare out the window. We eventually made the brown belts teach us one step sparring. The kick blocks are ODD, but at least we got to do SOMETHING eventually. :p

The exam schedule is out. All my exams are at 9 AM, joy oh joy. :p

December 5- Advanced Inorganic.
December 6- Spectroscopy
December 8- Japanese
December 15- Quantum

That's right. My last exam is on the SECOND last day of the exam period. Call the papers, it's a miracle! :p

Now I'm sitting in the Cragg eating cake because it's Nathan's birthday. My Spectroscopy class is madly trying to figure out our assignment because it's due today. Next stop, the lab, because we're getting booted from the Cragg in like seven minutes. Stupid intro midterms taking away our home every afternoon for a week. :p

Oh, and my still untitled Death/Death fic is off to Tessie for betaing. :D

ANime club was fun as always last night. Bill broguth in a few games, including a new one called Gold Thief. That one was crazy fun. Silly people stealing my gold though! :p We watched Gunslinger Girl, which is always fun, except for the second episode. (Hey, let's make half the second episode flashbacks to the FIRST episode! :p) Then we watched Kodomacha (sp?), which is very cracktastic. Though it was developing a plot in the third episode. It's surprising, even if I had been told it was going to happen. :p We finished up with Mythical Detective Loki Ragnarok, which could be interesting.

I also finished the longhand draft of my Death/Death fic... FINALLY. :p

There was a baptism at church today. The baby wanted nothing to do with the tracing of the cross thing though. She kept turning away every time her godparents tried. :p She was adorable though. :P

We had karate this morning, which meant katta learning happy fun time for those of us who actually showed up. G&G general auditions were also today, so the choreography learning part of my brain is all burned out. :p Part of the audition dance was the EWOK DANCE, which makes it all worth it. :p

Sleepy now. :p

QotD!

non_horation: I was like, so your email would be like, yhnsn?
non_horation: and then I realised your real name isn't Yubs

REALLY Tessie. :p

This grading was a lot more fun than the last one. SHORTER for one thing. Amusingly, we DIDN'T do half the techniques we had to do for the last one. :p The clinic was more fun, too. Not a solid hour of kicking. One of the instructors made Ryan stop coming at me so fast. I think she thought I was younger than I am, since I had my hair in French braids. Later we were sparring and I was paired with this cute little green belt. I kept getting so distracted by trying to get down to her level that I was screwing everything else up. ANd she would point this out. :p

La Vie Sloshed STu has now been unveiled. We killed Nicky loudly with our song. :D

Still no Goblins update. :p

Plan for this evening is work on Organic and Organometallic labs. Blah.

Hot water is WONDERFUL. I actually got a SHOWER this morning! This makes me a VERY happy Ewok. :p

It turns out I actually failed the Organic final before he scaled it which took it to exactly 50%. That was... kinda depressing to find out. I thought I'd done better on it than I had on the midterms. I started some problems, because I really need to make up lost ground in IV.

All this work for a class I don't even WANT to take. :p

I got in my one karate class before the show is over last night, which was fun. I couldn't remember the katta in the SLIGHTEST though. :p Ryan's in the class now, which is exciting. Though he needs to learn that white belts stand up last, because the mass of yellow belts was very excited to have someone standing up AFTER us for a change. :p In the self defense portion, we came to the conclusion that my wrist locks are really not so much with the threatening. ANd that I frequently have to resort to INTERESTING measures to get out of wrist locks.

Tess wins at music finding. I now have a song for the family meeting in Seasons of Mist, so all is well. Never ask her for help with happy music though. She doesn't have any. :p

Oh, I got a Christmas card from fyredra, which was TERRIBLY exciting. I also got my Ebay order from December. Vertigo Winter's Edge #3. So far I've only read the story I ordered it for, but some of the others look intriguing. Sandman may turn out to be a gateway drug for comics. :p The story was a Desire story, and it was pretty nifty. As a bonus, the art was by the guy who did the art in The Wake, so it was NICE. :D I don't read Sandman for the art, but when it's pretty, it's a bonus. :p

Oh, and I got my Death angst posted over at ewokese. So now I have the depressed anthropomorphic personification out of my HEAD. :p

Far be it from me to be the only person in karate to NOT complain about how FREEZING it was in Hesler last night. Because... it WAS. I honestly think it was warmer OUTSIDE. Bare feet + frozen floor is a bad scene.

I now have my yellow belt. It's all happy and colourful and cheerful. :D So now I'm not a marshmallow anymore. :p We started learning the next katta, which I feel like I'm getting the hang of MUCH faster than the first one. Sensei has decided we're going to be the most overtrained yellow belts EVER come April so there can be no surprises at that grading like they pulled on the greens and ups this time around.

Sammy is going to live with us next year, so that's one less thing for me to worry about. I wish we could find someone for next semester, but at least next YEAR is taken care of. :p Yay Sammy! :D

So much work to do. Can we extend the semester? And push back my Organic final? Please?

Feeling much better today. Got a start on my Analytical assignment, which was much better than the last one. I guess the evil one was a fluke. I did a few Organic problems between karate and rehearsal, so all is well. My legs are killing me from the squat kicks last night though. :p

Rehearsal was pretty amusing. We were doing tableaus of "Having fun at the party", which demonstrated our rather odd definition of fun. Most of the stuff in the tableaus turned out not to be particularly useable for the box social scene. :p It was kinda funny watching us try to do the dances in a classroom. Hitchkicks in close quarters are INTERESTING. :p

I don't particularly want to have my Organic lab today. Though Dr. Langler claims to have taken this week's lab from a sophomore book, so alledgedly even WE can't screw up. Considering how the labs have gone this year, I remain skeptical. It's really annoying. We have to do a formal lab report this year, but so far we don't have results from ANYTHING. :p

It's also the only lab where we have to wear labcoats. They really only protect clothing ANYWAY. More to the point, my lab coat is too big, so the sleeves are always knocking things over. I figure the wretched thing is actually a safety HAZARD. :p

After the lab, Steve is doing a talk on "Your life after Mt A" with pizza, so I'm going to that. Then I'm going to hit the Cragg to work on my Quantum presentation and ask some of the fourth years for advice.

I have a tv table in my room now, so I can work problems while sitting at my desk now. I couldn't do this before, since there was no surface to put a textbook on.

Nicky didn't like the Ravenclaw update this week. I was just being honest. "As far as I can see, we didn't actually do any tasks this week. There's your update." was the gist of it. :p