for the win

Have I mentioned yet how much I love being in UNCA? If I have, I don’t think I’ve said it enough.

If it’s not the beautiful campus, the awesome professors, the beautiful downtown, or all the little perks that come with being a UNCA student like free bus passes, it’s the lifestyle in general. And the people. I swear, this place was made for people like me. I just can’t get over how perfect this place is.

I was content with life before this, but getting increasingly fed up with having been in the same damn place and doing the same damn thing, dealing with the same damn assholes. I’m the type of person who gets bored of routine. Humans are creatures of habit and I’m no different, but I thrive on novelty and change. In Gastonia there wasn’t much of that. I was starting to feel like I was going to go stale.

Once I settled in here and realized “oh snap, I can do whatever the hell I want to!”, you can’t imagine how thrilling it was. Being a person who runs on spontaneity, I get a kick out of being able to decide at eleven o’clock at night that I want a midnight snack from the Highsmith and mosey over to the Highsmith, get me a snack, and mosey on back to Founders with a stop in front of the hall just to soak in the nighttime early autumn atmosphere. Or to sit outside in the rain just for the helluvit. Or take up residence in the study room for several hours because I want some solitude. Or to say “sure!” when Steven walks up and says “Hey Ann, got a few hours to kill? Wanna come downtown with me?” and just tell Sarah I’ll be gone for a while, collect my stuff, and head on out.

Of course, I’m trying not to let that freedom go to my head. So far it seems to be working fairly well. At first I stayed mostly in the room and didn’t venture out unless I had class, but that quickly got boring. Then I started chumming up with people, and chumming up with people usually means being drug around by those people. That was how I developed my newest hobby: pool. I’m so glad my people-skills have improved since middle school or I’d be such a hermit and rather miserable and bored. It’s allowed me to realize that I don’t actually mind being around people, and I actually enjoy it as long as the people aren’t jackasses. For me that’s quite a revelation.

So far I’ve established another part of my weekly routine: on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I pay the Health and Fitness Center a visit for about an hour. On MW it’s something of a dance to fit it into my schedule between soc and math, but this past week it’s worked. At this point all I do it run on the ellip and treadmill, but this is as much therapeutic let-my-mind-wander-while-i-exercise as it is trying to get into better shape. Which is the second reason I started doing this. Because honestly, I am rather out of shape, especially since I stopped taking riding lessons.

But yeah. I do so love it here. I can’t get over it. It’s just so awesome. =D

And if you noticed the sudden capitalization, it’s because I typed this in Word before putting it on Blogger. I was in the study room when I typed it and there’s no intarwebz in there. that rant over with...

i'm rather ashamed at myself for waiting this long to report about the Journey concert. actually, what i have to say about that event can be boiled down to just one word: EPIC

Night Ranger opened, and i have to say that they impressed me. at first i'd been neutral about them, knowing that they probably wouldn't be horrible if they were opening for Journey, but i was more concerned about the headliner, naturally. but when Night Ranger came onto the stage, after the second or third song i found myself just as enthusiastic as any of the more diehard Night Ranger fans. they're an old-ish band, from the '80s, but since when have i ever had a problem with older bands? XP

but then came Journey. and it was epic. =D it was interesting to see them all on stage, from the 6o-year-old bassist Ross Valory to their new lead vocalist Arnel Pineda, who does not look like he's 42. o_O i swear to God i thought he was in his thirties when i saw him on stage. he sounds soooo much like Steve Perry~ and i wondered as i was watching how the man got his energy. he was bouncing around all over creation, i kid you not.

and yes, i did cry. when they played Open Arms, i cried. and i'll admit it. you can't not be moved by that song. listening to it on my iTunes is one thing, but being there and hearing it live is something wholly else, and if you don't choke up during a song like that, there's a problem.

by two songs into Night Ranger's hour-long performance, my hearing was blunted. >_> Night Ranger played from 7:30 until 8:30, then we got a half-hour break before Journey came out. then they played for two hours, so by the time Dave and i got out of the colosseum parking lot (which was inhabited by a large number of people in various states of inebriation) and got to a place where we could be picked up, it was eleven-thirty or so. Then Patrick and Patrick picked us up and we spent a few hours chilling with them at Greensboro College before going back to the hotel and crashing on the fold-out couchbed thing. why in the name of God we had to get up at 6:30 in the damn morning i dunno, but after breakfast at Waffle House with the two Patricks, both of us promptly crashed again in the car on the way back. and then when i got to the apartment i crashed again. XP it was a weekend for crashing, but that's a concert weekend for you.

anyhow. back to life at UNCA. i have recently learned how to use the bus system -- did i mention that UNCA students, if we show our OneCard, get free rides on the buses? -- and so can now get around in Asheville proper whenever. i've made a mental note that, one day when i have nothing better to do, to dedicate an afternoon or something to just getting on a few different bus routes and watch. this area is beautiful, and the bus routes sometimes take you out into the beautimous countryside. i've always liked road-trips, and since i can ride free, hell, why not? it's a little chaotic getting the schedule and routes straight so you can get where you want to be, but once you get the hang of it, it's a good way to get around and spares the hassle of walking. without the bus system grocery shopping would be miserable.

last week, Steven drug me out of the room and we went on a little adventure downtown to the mall. it was quite fun -- i located the Barnes & Nobles and Hot Topic, both of which are admittedly about the same level of sad as the ones in Gastonia. but oh well. and Steven introduced me to this amazing little hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurant not far from campus. the food there is MOUTHGASMIC OHMAGAAAAHD, and decently priced too. definitely going there again. =D

so anyway. enough of my rambling, i need to study for that midterm tomorrow. -sigh-

whoops

well damn, i haven't posted here in over two months. >_O it's not like very many people read it, since everybody who does is also on FB, but still.

updates since early July. the main thing, obviously, is that i've started at UNCA. it's the fourth week in. so far i've settled into a routine: my alarm goes off an hour and a half before class is due to start (8:30 on MWF and 8:00 of TR) so i have time to take my shower and get ready. then i go to the caf. for breakfast. their eggs are fairly decent, i must say, and the sausage when they serve it. on alternating days they serve bacon that drips with grease. with a glass of apple juice, because breakfast is the meal of the day when i eat more healthily, i'm set. that usually gives me roundabouts half an hour once i finish eating to sit up a tree in the Quad and people-watch before i go to class.

i like the tree-sitting. on pretty days i get my music and a book and climb up in that same tree and can spend all afternoon between classes just chilling out. it gets me out of the room, at least. i'm trying not to be too much of a hermit.

anyway, class. my schedule goes thus:
Monday: Chem 132, 10:00; Sociology, 11:25; Math 179, 2:45
Tuesday: Bio 115 lecture, 9:25; Bio 115 lab, 1:45
Wednesday: Chem 132, 10:00; Sociology, 11:25; Math 179, 2:45
Thursday: Bio 115 lecture, 9:25; Chem 111, 1:45
Friday: Chem 132, 10:00; Math 179, 2:45

so far, my favorite class has to be the math. hands down. simply because a) the prof is amazing, b) it's a FLLIP which means we're doing interesting/different extracurricular things, and c) i may not be much of a math person, but the nerd in me goes into geekgasms about some of the topics we cover. it's all about Phi (aka the Divine Proportion, or whatever you want to call it) and thus far in the book, just learning about the backstory behind Phi and the people who discovered/had a lot to do with it, it's damn cool. i am easily amused.

but back to the amazing professor part. i've mentioned this before through various means on FB, but prof. Ed could identify every student in the class (granted there are only ten or fifteen people in it) by name and face, by move-in weekend. i kid you not. he called us all out by name and pointed to us when there was a FLLIP meeting the Friday we arrived.

by the way, FLLIP is a new program just enacted this semester that works with the freshman LSIC courses and integrates some things into the curriculum that gets us out and involved. that's the gist, so people don't get confused when i keep mentioning it. back to the story though.

just last night was another time when my personal estimation of prof. Ed jumped up from its already very impressive standpoint. he had all of us over at his house for dinner. a couple of people helped cart all fifteen of us to his place, and we spent the next two and a half hours hanging out in his house. (by the way, i want his house. it's old and tiny and cozy and i wanted to steal it from him.) the first batch of six who arrived -- myself included -- helped pick basil and oregano from the stalks he'd taken fresh out of his garden to make some pesto. by the time everybody else got there and we'd all settled in and gotten relaxed, the pesto was made, and the meal began.

it was, in professor's words, a Some Assembly Required meal. three types of pasta-noodle-things, and a small army of things to go on it like mushrooms, onions, grilled chicken, and other such goodness. and the pesto, or typical spagetti cause if you preferred. or both. these were all separate so you could pick and choose, like a pasta bar. and it was all delicious. i mentioned to Lauren and the rest of the table that i wished there were doggie-bags on hand so i could bring a plate back to dorm. afters were sugar cookies that we could cut out ourselves with his collection of different-shaped cookie-cutters and decorate with M&Ms, sprinkles, and such.

probably around 9:45 or 10 or so, Ryan, the boss-overseer-person(i dunno his official title) of Founders Residence Hall, showed up. at the time, i was in a conversation with Keith and Steven over where the drinking age should be. Ryan got in on the conversation, which then turned into a half-speech thing that the whole room quieted down to listen to, the gist of which was that he'd rather we learn about booze while we're still under our parents' roof than his, and that we're adults now so we can do what we want and have fun as long as we don't make idiots of ourselves. then prof. Ed quipped, "Great! Now I need a drink." and everyone burst into laughter.

Steven nearly left his backpack. lucky for him someone noticed it. anyway, once we got on the way back, with most of us crammed into a bus driven by Ryan (hence why he'd showed up in the first place), the topic continued between Keith and Steven in the seats behind me. somehow it drifted toward the health care system, with Steven rather adamantly of the opinion that people should pay for their own damn health care. Ryan apparently heard the debate and put his own two cents in, and the rest of the ride was taken up by that other topic of discussion. i just listened to this part of it, since my say had been said for the night. i was a bit preoccupied reveling in the intelligent, logical debate rather than the sometimes heated arguments that had cropped up frequently in Huss whenever opposing viewpoints were aired. again, i am easy to please.

anyway. back to describing my classes, which was the original topic of this blog until i went off on a tangent. >_> my second favorite class is chem; at this juncture, i'm favoring the lecture more than the lab, simply because Schmeltzer is fun and awesome and the 111 lab requires a lot of standing around with annoying goggles over my face for three solid hours.

i say Schmeltzer is awesome for a few reasons. one: his teaching style. i wish my high school teachers had been this awesome -- Noblitt was but that's about all i can say -- it would've made Huss more bearable. prof. Schmeltzer cusses a lot. it's highly amusing. his style is just really casual and colloquial, which is a nice change. he's also cool in that he's quite accomodating, which is a relief for me. the day of the Journey concert, September 18th, is the day we take our first exam in chem 132. i'll have to be off-campus close to noon or one, and the exam is from 4:10 to 6:10. so when i approached Schmeltzer about this, he offered to let me take the exam a day early -- a few girls in the class are on the soccer team and will be gone that Friday as well, so ta-da! i can just take it with them! i was flabbergasted at the convenient coincidence.

anyway. in the scale of classes, the two labs come next. they're fun and interesting, though i get irked by the goggles we have to wear in chem 111. (the general chem lab has a different number than the lecture -- 111 to 132 -- but for bio, the co-requisite lab has the same number as the lecture. i dunno why.) we haven't done much in the bio lab -- we've only had two so far. chemistry was the only department with a lab the first week of classes, and for some reason Dr. Hale decided to give us an extra break and have no lab the Tuesday after Labor Day weekend.

soc is my least favorite class, for several reasons. main one: i took soc last year, and it has become clear that the general-level courses freshmen take are basically just high school courses all over again. so i already know most everything the prof is teaching us, and anyone who knows me knows that being re-taught something that i don't find very interesting is a form of torture to me. chem 132 is high school chem all over again, but i don't get bored because it's interesting. soc not so much. the other reason is that Dr. Lee is Korean, and as such has a very thick accent. he speaks English fluently, but i still have a hard time understanding more than one out of every three words he says. this is a bad combination. not to mention that the book is as thick and dense as the US History book Noblitt had us read. how in God's name someone managed to make a sociology book as tedious and irksome to read as that sin against literature i have no clue.

well. classes aside, life is decent on the whole. i still adore this place as much as i did when i first set foot on campus -- in fact, i love it even more. this place suits my temperament and preferences perfectly. there are inevitable drawbacks to college life, but outside of those i'm way to happy here to let little trivialities dampen my enjoyment of life. =D

but i do need to gripe a bit. my roomie Sarah and i get along well -- so far no problems or complaints, we're both easygoing and with similar enough ways that it's all cool there. the suitemates are a slightly different story. it's nothing major, but they have little tendencies that are a little annoying. they have a habit of leaving the light in the bathroom on when they're not there; not only is it a waste of electricity, but it makes us think someone's in there when it's empty. and their music can sometimes get kinda loud. mostly Sarah and i are listening to our own music so it's not too big of a bother, but it's still a little irksome.

that seems to be the end of my ramble. i still need to do one more prof. Ed assignment before class starts in a couple of hours. so i shall bugger off and do my homework.

mreep

for those who haven't heard, though i think pretty much everyone who reads my blog is also on Facebook and has thus already heard it, but the DunnWaffle is AMAZING~! chocolate pie plus warm waffle goodness equals MOUTHGASM. earlier tonight Justin and Dave and i experimented with mixing about half a DunnWaffle, about a cup of coffee and an indeterminate amount of milk with which to counteract the sugar -- and some ice to make it more smoothie-like -- and it was if possible even more amazing. i think Justin is calling it the Mocha-Waffle-Frappe, or some variation thereof. we all three supped the results of the first experiment with it, and i know right now i'm not gonna be getting to sleep anytime soon. =D

tomorrow (officially, since it's about 2:30-3:00 am on Friday) is my birthday. i've been anticipating this birthday more than i have the last few -- possibly because i've been to damn BORED that anything to look forward to is welcome. e_e or possibly because it's my 18th. legal adult and all that. either way, yeah.

lately i've discovered some awesome bands to broaden my musical tastes. Coheed and Cambria, namely -- they are awesome. Dave and RB had gotten me into A7X and Disturbed, along with some All That Remains. not to mention Papa Roach or Sixx: A.M. Shinedown as well. in general, good bands.

Journey concert in September. good up-front seats roughly $75/$85. score~! gonna buy tickets as soon as i get a paycheck to supplement the portion of grad money i'm letting myself spend. and no matter if i have to skip one day of LSIC math, i'm going to that concert! it's Journey, for crying out loud!

yeppers. classes coming up in August include Bio, Bio lab, Chem, Chem lab, Soc, and a math that they signed me up for.

... song that showed up on my playlist just now: Little Piece of Heaven by A7X. it's a song about necrophilia. so creepy, but i admit that i do like the song a lot. the tune's amazing. and it's such an Avenged Sevenfold-esque subject for a song, but somehow they pull it off without the song being freakishly disturbing. the video, as seems to be typical for A7X, leaves a bit to be desired. but i won't let the dumb videos affect my enjoyment of the songs.

anyhow. where was i before the necrophilia song distracted me? right. i'm REALLY excited to be going to UNCA~ hOMG it's gonna be so fun. i think the freedom will go to my head until i settle into the new routines. my class load and the on-campus job i hope to get will hwlp keep me occupied, 'cause everyone knows by now that a bored Ann is a lazy Ann and that is not a good thing. e_e;

OH MAH GAWD my room is clean. it hasn't been this clean in... seven, eight years? six and a half bags of trash and nine bags for Goodwill later, my room is so clean that it feels like a different room altogether. it took three days, but i'd expected it to take longer. ^_^;; but hey, it works.

and i has a lappy~~! =DDD <33333333 unfortunately, it has Vista, but even though Vista is stupid, XP is kinda outdated by now, and i have hated Macs since we had one despite Dad adoring the stupid thing, so yeah. e_e so Vista is the lesser of the evils in my personal opinion. it's got Microsoft Offive 2007, which to someone used to 2003 is CONFUSING but i'll get over it, since everyone else in the world rides the tide of "OOH look it's new and shiny, let's get it!" -rolls eyes- i'm all for the improving and changing, but just because something is new and looks cool doesn't necessarily mean it's better.

take the iPhone for example, if you'll bear with me going off on a tangent. everyone thinks they're so snazzy and awesome, but if you have one and you lose it, well shit, there went your whole life, dumbass! e_e you've not just lost your phone, but your iPod and all the apps that you've come to rely on being on hand, gone! tough luck!

honestly now. when i say cell phone, i don't mean a combination phone/camera/computer/iPod/whatever else you put on it. cellphones make calls and send text messages. if i want a hand-held music thing, i'll use my CD player or mp3 player. if i want a computer, i'll get my laptop. if i want to take a picture or record, i'll get a camera. that way, if i lose one of them, i don't lose the rest at the same time! seems fairly logical to me~

anyway. there's my rant for the wee morning hours fueled by a mixture of chocolate pie and coffee and YUM. -takes a deep breath and moves on-

like five famous people have died within the past few weeks, and i'm just waiting for the sixth. it made me sad that a musical genius like Michael Jackson died, though he was creeping me out with the looking like a white woman. o_o;; but really, people, get over it! i understand wanting to remember him for all he's contributed to society, but there's no use flogging a dead horse(no pun intended)!

buut yeah. the sun will be up in a couple of hours, so i'll quit while i'm behind and shut up.

BUT on a quick side note, people on YouTube are funny idiots. every time you get a vid on a band like A7X or Disturbed or something like that, most of the comments are people bashing one another or the song. they're hysterical! i just saw one paragraph just criticizing someone for a few typos and called it bad grammar. i couldn't resist pointing out to that person in a reply comment that their saying "alright" was improper English. XP i wonder what it'll look like tomorrow or in two days.

woah

yes, i did change my blog's skin. sexy, isn't it?

anyhow, down to business. this morning was the fourth period exam, and this exam was the only one that i wasn't exempt from/hadn't taken early. today was my last day as an enrolled student at Hunter Huss. graduation is in five days, roughly; then i will be done forever with high school.

i dunno whether to be nostalgic or overjoyed. at the moment, i'm a mix of both. as i strolled the halls of the school to say my final good-byes to beloved teachers, i was close to tears. i have had both good times and bad since ninth grade; overall, as i look back, i can say with confidence that in all they were four years well spent. i've grown a lot since entering Huss; in knowledge and in valuable life experience.

i just want to say, to everyone who has been a part of my life these past four years: thank you. thank your for the laughter, for the tears, for every moment that will linger in my memory. even if the names and faces fade, i will still remember what you have done. i won't start naming people, because i know i'll never be able to list everyone who has contributed in some way to my development since that August in 2005 when i first walked through Huss' front doors.

just open your eyes
just open your eyes and see that life is beautiful
will you swear on your life
that no one will cry at my funeral

that's a good way to sum up my current outlook on life. listen to the rest of the song to get the proper idea of the mood. perhaps it's a bit twisted, if you listen to the lyrics, but it's a kind of bitter optimism. i can't say i see the world as a place of rainbows and butterflies where everyone gets along, but the world is full of opportunities, and which ones you take dictate how it turns out. it can be good or bad, depending on your attitude when you start. if you're smiling, then life will be fairly good. if you wear a frown on the way in, then a dark cloud will follow you. so i am determined to plaster a big grin on my face and make the most of it as i segue into this new era of my life.

more when i finish making sense of what i'm feeling. at the moment, it's too vague to articulate.

Hymn 43

Marcus and company may not appreciate the awesomeness of Jethro Tull, but they can't deny that they can't sing worth shit and than i can hand their asses to them on vocals on Rock Band II. i lost count of how many times me and Dave (and Kelsey when she had the drums) had to save their sorry asses when they had the mic. hearing Marcus try to sing Journey made my soul bleed.

while i was singing Hymn 43, i could barely hear myself for his derogatory comments. still, i hit 83% of the notes. an 83 is good no matter what, but i was on bloody expert mode. EXPERT MODE, BITCHES. the other three (playing guitar, bass and drums) got scores in the 90s, but none of them were on expert mode. -preens- i'd like to see any of THEM try to sing Ian Anderson on expert mode and last more than ten seconds.

-chuckles- i defended my title of bass guitar Jesus last night. Marcus and Dalton are such pathetic singers. some songs, they died at least twice and i had to rez them. even Dave, who can take most every song on Rock Band on expert, was murdered by some of the solos. -cracks knuckles- and i played medium on most of the songs. granted, bass is easier than lead guitar, but i'm not nearly as adept on those guitar controllers as i am singing. and i'm far from a good singer when my voice box decides it's had enough of A7X, but that's beside the point.

the story behind my title, in case anyone is wondering and unfamiliar with Rock Band: when one of the band members misses too many notes and fails, one of the other band members can use some of their star power and resurrect them. at the end of each song, the scores for each band member are displayed, and sometimes you get little comments under them. if one of your bandmates fails and you save them, you can get the comment "Savior" or "Band Savior" under your score. thus, Jesus.

anyway, i'm off to get more sleep. staying up playing Rock Band and making late IHOP runs until one in the morning and then getting up at the crack of dawn to go to work is not conducive to good sleeping habits, even after a two-and-a-half-hour nap this afternoon. -yawns- i need to rest my brain up well if i wanna have a chance of passing the IB test Tuesday and the AP test Thursday. TT^TT my poor brain wil be fried by this time next week.

-foamsatmouf-

Noblitt is very good at giving me stuff that makes me think. and what i think of makes me very pissed. watching that thing by Naomi Wolf the other day in class (Patrick & Co. remember it, if you'd bothered to pay attention) started it, and reading this chapter in the Cold War book is bringing back that outrage.

here's my problem: "Those who would sacrifice their rights for safety deserve neither." i wish i could remember who Noblitt quoted when he said that. that's been in my head for the past three-ish years, because i agree wholeheartedly with it. i won't go into the rant about how much bullshit the Patriot Act and such was, but that was my problem watching the lecture documentary thing in class.

reading the Cold War book added another, similar one. when you compromise people's rights in order to defend yourselves from authoritarian governments, you become NO better than your enemies. i can't emphasize that enough. Machiavelli may have been smart, but for the love of God if you violate the Constitution, we've got some problems. the President is NOT above the law, gawddamit! -veinthrob-

Patrick, i really wish you had paid attention to that movie. this is stuff that happened in your lifetime, and will probably continue to happen. apathy is what has allowed horrible things to happen before, and if you don't learn from history's mistakes, you'll end up shit outta luck and wondering how in the hell your world just got turned upside down.

-deep breath- i needed to get that out. i was really pissing me off. now i'll finish reading my homework.

mrow

not too incredibly much to report since my last post. i'm sure there's been enough to fill up a few paragraphs, but since i haven't gotten around to (forgotten to) post i've mostly forgotten the stuff i planned on posting. ain't ADD grand?

anyhow. there is one thing i remember in sufficient detail: the ordeal of the IB Internal Assessment. Ma, Patrick and co. have already gotten an earful of that, but i'll repeat it for the sake of complaining.
one thing is certain: NONE of the other people in the 20th Century class have ANY right to grouch about doing theirs. if they do i might start ripping throats out. -eyetwitch-

okay, here's what happened: about two weeks before the end of March, Noblitt told me that of the people who are taking the IB history test this May (i'm the only one taking the class this semester who's also sighed up for the test) six of the Assessments from those people are going to be sent in and actually graded by the IB folks. the history ones are headed to Ghana.
here's the fun part: they were supposed to be ready to send out on April 1st. Noblitt told me that morning that he'd just found out, so he couldn't have let me know sooner.
at that point, i was very frustrated. it was all well and good for the ones who took the class first semester, 'cause theirs were done already. but this semester hadn't been in but for three months. since it's IB (keyword being international) it might have been that they didn't factor in the fact that there was a new batch of kids taking the class who'd barely started working on it, since a lot of other countries have a much more logical way to run their schools, but that seems like a stretch. and if they were aware of the semester change, would they really have just assumed that the teachers would make all of us taking the test do this project whether we had the class then or not? it makes no sense.
the kicker for me was that Noblitt had set the due-date for the first two sections of the Assessment for April 2nd.
so i basically had two weeks to do most of this Assessment. and this Assessment isn't like the research essays we're used to, either. i wish it had been, it would've been much easier to get done on time. but nope! the point of this was to pick an event in history, take a certain viewpoint, and pick it to bit. the parts went so: introduction, a basic overview of the event, doing an OPVL on two sources, analyzing the event from your viewpoint, conclusion, and bibliography. no less than 1500 words, no more than 2000. in two weeks. Noblitt had said before that we'd need to look outside our usual places to find sources -- the detail we'd go into, we'd need a more extensive collection of info than the Huss or Gaston library, and something more reliable than the crap on the intarwebs.
so the 28th, i took a roadtrip to UNCC. that trip was a saga in and of itself that i'll get to. but it took the rest of Saturday and Sunday to make sure i had my resources and research in the right place, and Monday and Tuesday to write it. i managed to turn it in to Noblitt on the first like a good little bean. i got word week before last that mine was one of the six being sent to Ghana -- joy.
like i said before, after i had to do pretty much the while damn thing and turn it in when the first half was due for them, no one else in that class has room to complain about the deadline. at all.

and now, to my adventure at UNCC. it was pretty much my first time driving on the interstate after that rather nervous few passes when i was still in driver's ed, so there was that. needless to say i didn't leave the house without taking my pill.
i chose to go on Saturday for several reasons: on weekends, parking is free in UNCC. also, Saturday morning is one of the less busy times when driving on I-85. so the drive up wasn't especially bad, except for the few times when people decided to play musical-lanes right in front of me.
it took me a minute of wandering and a phone call to find a parking deck in UNCC. it took me about half an hour of wandering in the drizzle to realize i wasn't getting anywhere, so i found a map of the campus, which is what i should've done in the first place. after consulting the map, i found a new parking deck and scampered across to the Atkins library.
i had never been in ten stories of books before. it was amazing. i decided, as i was hanging out in the UNCC library and doing my research, that when i got to UNCA i might live in the library there.
i needed to make copies of the books i'd found. i went up to a copier, but it needed a card of some sort. this frustrated me for a minute or three, until i asked a desk and the chick pointed out a rather brightly-colored machine on the far wall that would give me a card to use if i gave it money. so i gave it a $5 bill and it gave me a card, out of which i could get over fifty copies. so i copied the snot out of the two books.
in the process of doing this, i ended up helping out a guy who came over to the copy/printer and asked me how to work it. i asked him what he was trying to do, and he said he had something on the computer he needed to copy. copy onto paper, i asked? he said yes. so i pointed to the laminated paper on the wall next to the copier and helped him figure out how to make the copier print. when he thanked me, i admitted to him that i had never been here before -- he looked flabbergasted. i felt a sort of sympathy for him, because he obviously was unused to technology; i know he drove the library folks to distraction trying to figure out how to work the computer.
the drive back from UNCC was a different ordeal from getting there. it was mid-afternoon, so traffic had picked up again. in and of itself, that wasn't so bad. but it had started drizzling shortly after i got to Charlotte, so i had to drive back in the downpour. not cool. if it had been raining any harder, i would've pulled over and either waited it out or called Mom and Mike to rescue me. on top of that, as is usual for the people in this area, they completely went nuts. the drove even more idiotically than normal, in the rain, with the cars packed more tightly in some places than was really necessary.
under normal circumstances, it bothers me when people play musical-lanes and merge across several lanes all in one swoop and apparently without looking. usually, when they do this, they come far closer to the cars in front of them, behind them, or both, than is good for my nerves. but when they do it in the rain, it's downright scary. i really don't know what possesses these people to ride each other's asses going sixty-five or seventy miles an hour. it's a pile-up waiting to happen. and i especially don't like it when an eighteen-wheeler is involved. and why in the wide world of sports they disregard the rain and the effects it could have on their wheels and brakes is totally beyond me. i managed to keep my head through this whole mess and sighed in intense relief when i turned onto New Hope, where the speeds were sane again. and, after this, i can at least say that i have driven on I-85 in the rain and come out alive, which is more than far too many people can claim.

that seems to be all, i think, besides the fact that the more i visit UNCA the more i love it. i'll blog about the admitted student day this past Friday. eventually.

-veinthrob-

disclaimer: i will cuss a lot now. because i am angry.

i am a very pissed midget, as you can tell. the explanation for those of you who weren't there:

i divide up the people who take japanese I into two groups. the minority take it because they want to learn japanese. the majority take it because it's a crap-class (my term for a class they take just to fill up a slot in their schedules). people in the latter classification never give a shit about the class, so they are always the most disruptive and disrespectful and downright irritating. my problem was with one of the people in this group.

of the idiot brigade this semester, this guy is one of the noisiest. he's been on my nerves since the first day. he never shuts up. he badmouths sensei (under his breath, which is why sensei hasn't caught him yet) and is generally an ass all period long. today was no different.

he and his fellow buttfaces were kicking up a racket as usual. sensei was yelling "shizukani! shizukani!" at them, but of course they didn't really know what she was trying to say so they didn't listen. i heard one of them ask (loudly) "what's that mean?" it came from behind me so i assumed it was the particular asshole aforementioned, since he'd been relocated to the corner of the room by sensei.

by now, i'd had it up to here with them. i'd had enough of it. so i turned around and told the guy that it means shut the hell up. of course, the self-absorbed ass had to turn it into an argument, and he demanded why i was talking to him like that. i replied that i'm talking to him like that because he won't shut the hell up. the ijjit started muttering indignantly, but by then my short burst of temper had faded enough for me to regain control of my tongue, so i ground my teeth and didn't respond.

sensei pushed the button, and asked for an administrator to come down and talk to some of her students who were arguing. hearing the plural just made my temper worse. i'd said nothing but the truth, why get me in trouble? i could understand her reasoning for involving both squabblers, but it still didn't help how irritated i was. so a minute or two later, Suratt (can't spell his name for the life of me) pokes his head in, and sensei calls me and assbreath up there to have a word with Suratt.

i admitted that it was wrong of me to have lost my temper like that, but i lost it for good reason, because buttface and his cronies won't shut up. Suratt asked assbreath why he wouldn't be quiet after sensei kept telling him, which only elicited some half-intelligible mutters. Suratt left after warning us to not raise our voices, and the last twenty minutes of class went by pretty much as normal.

okay. i know why sensei got me involved too, but what was my fault besides giving that asshole a taste of his own medicine? he's been nothing but disrespectful since the beginning, it's about time he got bitched at back. it's his problem if he is too childish to leave it at that. true, i didn't necessarily have to yell, but that's the only thing ijjits like that really listen to. he more than deserved to get someone giving as much snark as they get. sensei has told him to sit outside once before, and i really hope (though i doubt) that she'll do anything worse to the ass. he was the one at fault, i was only speaking the truth. not my fault he got his inflated ego hurt.

i don't regret snapping like that. it didn't make me feel even a little bit better, not on any level, but i don't wish i hadn't said what i did. i won't say i'd do it again, because i'd get ISS and i don't intend on explaining three days of ISS to the admissions folks at UNCA.

you peeps who know me know that i'm not at all the type to lose my temper. or if i do, i usually keep it to myself. that little outburst did nothing to alleviate my irritation -- being called out made it worse if anything. but i'm sorry, when people are being goddamned assholes, there's only so many times i can sit there and keep my mouth shut. as tolerant as i am, even i have a threshold.

so. i'm going to do something mindless for the rest of the day to readjust my attitude.

=D

-does a victory dance- no more braces! no more brackets! WHEE~!

i FINALLY had those eight brackets taken off my lower front teeth today! squee! but to keep my teeth in place, they cemented a little chain-looking wire thing to the backs of those eight teeth. it feels so weird! my tongue won't leave it alone! it's this little smooth bulge behind the teeth, i keep thinking i have something stuck to them until i remember it won't come off. maybe my tongue's distraction with the permanent retainer is what's keeping it from spazzing too much about the lack of brackets. either way, i'm gonna be messing with it for a few days until my mouf gets a grip.

i got out about fifteen minuted into 2nd period, which was good. 2nd is art, and Cronin wasn't here today, so were watching a movie. the same movie most of us have seen at least once, probably two or three times for some of the art III/IV folks. the whole kit 'n' caboodle took around forty-five minutes, so i got out of there around 11:15, 11:20.

now, my 3rd period is on C-hall, which means i have first lunch. first lunch starts as soon as you get out of 2nd and goes for about half an hour -- it's scheduled to end around 11:50. so i realized i could get food! mostly real fast-food and not the questionable school food! gasp! so we stopped by Mickey D's and i got fries and a soda. om nom nom.

the only problem was, right when we pulled up and i opened the car door, i heard the bell for 2nd lunch. BAH. still, i wasn't about to toss out my fries and Coke; even though i don't particularly remember Mrs. Chaney objecting too strenuously to a few of the people nibbling in class, i still think it's pretty rude to be chomping away while the teacher's trying to teach. i was already gonna be a bit late anyway, waiting for the ijjit in front of me at the control room to shut up, so while i stood around to check back in, i figured, "ah, screw it." so once i was officially back in school, i took my noms into the cafeteria. one of my chums Amanda has 2nd lunch, i found out just today, so i sat with her for ten or so minutes while i munched on my fries.

the awesome thing about my 3rd period: it's a Huskins class. the teacher, therefore, often has a more lenient policy about attendence and such than a normal high school teacher. Mrs. Chaney told us the first day or two of the semester that she quote: "didn't care why we're late or absent," unquote. because of that, i wasn't unduly bothered coming into class fifteen minutes late. i'd remembered that we had a quiz today first thing, but i also knew that her quizzes were fairly easy and it wouldn't take me any time at all to finish. i was right -- even though i showed up late, i wasn't even the last person to turn a quiz in. (the teacher usually gives us a few minutes for last-minute studying before giving us quizzes) so it was all good.

that's pretty much all my news for now. this cough is slowly but surely fading, which is good. i got Miranda to take my shift last week so i didn't have to tromp around at the barn with this chest cold thing, and this week we're trading shifts since i'm feeling better and she has a sports-related thing that takes up Saturday afternoons. so yeah, i think that's it. peace.

-coffhack-

bad week so far.

Friday night was awesome. i'm not much of a partier, but every now and then i just need to screw around until three in the morning playing mindless video games and visiting IHOP at the wee hours of the morning. we need to get Kelsie back, peeps. she was cool. DOCTOR OCTOGONOPUS BWAAH!!

i wasn't sure how to set the alarm clock on the blackjack, so it didn't go off Sunday morning when i needed to get up for work. i woke up at 7:10; that was a major OH SHIT moment. i dunno if Dad was awake, but if he was he'd have heard my profane growl to the tune of "oh fuckitall!"

so i rushed to work, getting a call from Alethea halfway there at around 7:30 so i could reassure her that i remembered i was working, i just failed at setting my alarm, please forgive me. she forgave me -- it wasn't like the horses would starve to death if i was forty-five minutes late. so i scrambled into work, glad it was unseasonably warm (for once) since for some as-yet inexplicable reason my throat felt like it was lined with sandpaper.

it turned out that the barn's resident dumbass horse Chello was a bit lame on his left front hoof, so on the orders of his mom Carol he was stall-bound. Carol's other horse Dandy was inside as well to keep Chello company, since the big ijjit flips out if he's alone in the barn. i fed those two first (meaning i ended up feeding the other three gelding in 2 at the same time since i didn't want to run the risk of Chello choking on his food AGAIN if Misha was missing from the stall next to him) and proceeded through the day in a slightly braindead blur. good thing the chores i've got in my job require little thinking. at the end i got the lovely job of mucking out Chello's and Dandy's stalls, which were both FULL of crap and piss thanks to their overnight stay. miraculously, when i wrote down my hours and worked it out, i somehow spent about the same time on it that day that i do on a normal morning shift in full possession of my wits and no full stalls to muck.

the rest of Sunday i did my level best to imitate a vegetable. i had another of my after-work epic naps, and by the time i sluggishly gathered up my stuff and made it home from the apartment at around seven-ish, i had lost the will to move and the joints in my legs seemed to hate me. i thought the flu -- LOVELY.

since Monday this whatever i've got has developed into an annoying dry cough. i think it's just an upper respiratory infection, since the weird aches i had Sunday didn't last the night. Monday and Tuesday nights the meds i took to stifle the coughing made my sleep just as sporadic. instead of draining down my throat to make me cough, the meds diverted the mucous into my nose. i dripped all night, waking up several times in time for epic sneezes that have probably crusted the edge of my bed with slick mess. i'm kinda glad it was too dark for me to see it. as i told Ma on the way to school today: i probably left slug trails all over my bed.

both Niquil and a combination of this Tylenol Cold PM stuff and melatonin did the same thing. usually melatonin knocks me out all night, but it didn't seem to be a match for my nasal explosions. both last night and the night before i woke up at around midnight and again at about four am; last night, i didn't get back to sleep, so around 5:30 i gave in and got up to take my shower. predictably, once i had gotten back out and dressed and snuggled back under the covers, i dozed off for another hour and a half or so.

so yeah. i'll probably irritate the everliving crap out of my classmates all day today with my constant hacking, like i have for the past few days. i think i gave Heather my ick, she's been sounding a bit hoarse since yesterday. where i got it, we're not sure. i have a sneaking suspicion it came from something Friday night.

meh

i'm posting mainly 'cuz i know if i don't now chances are i won't for the rest of the month. but really there's not much to write about, besides new semester crap.

my new schedule:
20th Century History with Noblitt
Art II
Huskins Psychology
Japanese III

20th Century promises to be interesting. a lot of reading and writing, Noblitt said. i'm good at writing. =3 and the mere fact that Noblitt's teaching will make this an entertaining class, at least some of the time.

Art was a space-filler, i never expected too much. this first part we're doing is drawing, which is both good and bad. good because i likw drawing, bad because i tend to be a perfectionist and thus take too long, and also bad because some things i can't draw to save my life. next will be sculpting, and i couldn't say whether i'm excited or hesitant about that.

Psych so far is a bit boring, since it's a lot of lecturing and we haven't gotten into the overly interesting stuff yet. we will and that's gonna wrawk, 'cuz some of the stuff in just this first six weeks of general psych is fascinating to a geek like me.

Japanese... ooh boy. Japanese III student = Japanese II sensei. Hayashi-sensei has three levels of Jap'nese in one classroom. she focuses most of her energy on the Jap'nese I who have no clue what they're doing, and give the II and III worksheets to keep them occupied. since she has three III students and four II students, the III students are charged with helping the II kids.
i will say one thing: without Chris Brown and the idiot brigade in there, it's not nearly as bad. Eric and Strepo, two of the guys who always kicked up a racket last semester, are actually not as bad without the influence of Chris and his posse.
still, when Kepaato-san is in a misanthropic mood, she makes a bad sensei. even though she remembers a lot of the stuff that Dan-san forgot from his Jap'nese II last year and even the stuff Rongu-san forgot from last semester. granted some of the stuff escapes me, but Patrick still fails at remembering days of the month. -shakes head-

by the way. Kepaato-san = me. translating english into katakana and back into romaji makes for a garbled end result. ((romaji = english characters))

IN OTHER NEWS. i am now addicted to Breaking Benjamin. thanks for showing me their music, Garrett. =3 'tis awesome.

oh yeah, i just remembered something else. my old Nokia piece of junk phone has been acting the spazz lately. i think the battery is going dead. either way, i hate the damn thing. and after Ma's old Blackjack took a swim, she had to get a new one, right? but the old one, after it dried out, still works perfectly. so it was a simple matter of prying the back off my old phone, retrieving the SIM, and slipping the SIM into the old Blackjack. Ta-da, i has a snazzy new phone!

i like this thing much better than my old one, and even figured out how to customise the profiles and home screen and whatnot. yay for me! but i'm an indentured servant for a few weeks to pay for the use of her old phone. i'm not complaining 'cuz i know it's fair, even though i hate dusting and vacuuming with a passion.

anyhow, that's it, i think. peace owt.

i am a cupcake.

first post of the new year, whoopee! -does a dance-

anyhow. first update: work was an adventure today! =D

because it had been raining and storming all night long, so the whole stretch of land Diamond Pointe takes up was mostly swamp. a lot of the pasture-space has been scarred clean of grass by years of horse hooves and people boots stomping all over it. and some places, like in front of the gates and water troughs, have been pounded into fine dust. which inevitably turns to quicksand-esque mud whenever it rains.

it was drizzling and mizzling and dripping for the first half of my shift, and for the better part of it i was walking to and fro in the pastures laden with whatever. so i was out in the wet and the muck all morning. most sane people would find this unpleasant.

my inner five-year-old was jabbering euphorically most of the time i was at the barn. i was getting to play in the mud and rain! and i was getting paid money to do it!! that is any child's dream job. and since i'm such a kid at heart, i was having way too much fun. is there any rule against having fun at work? if so, i broke it. majorly.

oh, i forgot one of the entertaining parts. for some inexplicable reason, when i first got to work there was no power for half the street. why, i still have no clue. but the streetlamps were out, and the lights in the barn wouldn't go on. and since i got there at about six fifty or something, it was still pretty dark and dusky out there. 'specially because it was raining and cloudy.

also. Alethea made a bad call last night and opted to leave the horses out. and it stormed all night. so everyone was wet and grumpy. some of the horses, i found out today, have fur that curls when it gets wet. the old man Flare is one of them, and he earned himself the nickname Curly-Q today.

if you're wondering about the title for this post, it's because i wore my cupcake beanie Kelsey gave me for Christmas. =3 it is cute. and i love it.

anyhow, enough rambling from the spaz. -salutes- peace owt.