Not really a blog

This isn't really a bog, but an amusing observation. I was reading the Paisano online and found the web poll. The results greatly amused me...


That's the life of a college student, eh?

(For the record: I said "work".)

ETA: I happened to check the results at a very amusing time... if you check the results now, things are a lot more spread out... but still. Amusing, right?

Catching Up

I am sorry I have been on a trend of only remembering to update before my Geology class once or twice a week. I do feel bad about it, however my life has turned toward final exams and I have become busy trying to fit a lot of things into my day.

So, over the weekend I went home and saw the St Mike's spring musical - they performed Guys and Dolls. The production was so good and I laughed and got chills the whole way through. It was really fun and they had clearly put a lot of work into it! Was still a little weird not to be onstage with them, but my time there is done.

Saturday was a long day. Brandlyn and her family are moving across town, and so I volunteered myself (and my mother) to go help them pack up their house. Unfortunately, it turned out that I was having a really awful allergy day (Brandy's dog Bella is adorable, but I just don't have the immunity built up to her that I do my dogs) so after spending around three hours packing and going through almost an entire box of tissues, Brandy practically kicked me out of the house. I went home, took some sudafed and slept for the whole afternoon.

That night was a lot better... I was fuzzy-headed (oh, sudafed...) but I had recovered from the allergies and so we went to see Bob Schneider.


BOB! (I like the lighting in this photo.)



(I like this photo of us! :D)

(Isn't this picture so cute?)

We had a real good time! It was my first Bob concert, and now I understand why Mom has wanted to marry him for the last few years. (However, lately when you tease her about this, she insists that she is happy with Mike.)

So last night, because I was a bad girl over the weekend and didn't do what Hermione Granger said I should, I had to play a bit of catchup and study the chapters I didn't do over the weekend. It took me around two and a half hours, but I did eventually finish. (I now have covered about half of the ground I need to for the final, and have created a nine-pages of a study packet.)

Today, I have a busy day ahead of me, but none of it will be bad. I have to go to class (I am in Geology now...), I have to do a bit of cooking (we're having a party in my French class tomorrow, and I volunteered to make some food), and tonight I have the Paisano dinner tonight. I am looking forward to the dinner. I enjoy spending time with the other editors and writers and had a really good time last Christmas. I have a feeling that it will be even more fun tonight, just based on the fact that I know the people better.

Class is in full swing now, so I must go!

Hermione Granger was WRONG

So Hermione Granger didn't come through for me last weekend when I posted my review schedule. She got a few things wrong, so here is the corrected schedule:

(This is more or less for the sake of my Mother, who will stalk my study habits whether or not I want her to. Love you, Mama!)


The differences are that with the previous schedule I did not know exactly how my finals (and their reviews) would be set up, and I assumed (like the professors told me at the beginning of the semester) that the finals would be cumulative. Since then, my Geology and History professors have changed their plans (so that the final only covers the last few weeks of the course) and my Astronomy professor decided that he was going to post a final review instead of just telling us to study off the tests.

The only things that haven't changed are French and English. Although, depending on my mood, I'll probably cover more ground with French each day than what I have set up. That's the way it happened last semester.

Another Blog before Geology

So here I am, sitting in the lecture hall and blogging before my Geology class again. I have created the habit, have I not?

The week has gone by more or less uneventfully. I have gone to my classes, started studying for finals (which start in NINE DAYS) and finished a sock (which I will photograph when the pair is finished.)

The weird thing about this week is that I am so ready for finals that I seem to have zoomed ahead to nine days from now and can't concentrate on normal stuff: stuff like remembering what day it is, what we did in class yesterday, and what finals are cumulative. (In case you were wondering, I just remembered that my Geology final is the only non-cumulative one. This pleases me.)

Tomorrow, there is a half-day holiday (for a reason which I am completely unaware of) which means, like you may have noticed on my Twitter, means that I can hit the road back to Austin at a decent hour and not feel guilty about it. I was planning on going to my Astronomy class anyway, but I certainly wasn't looking forward to the traffic around 3:30-4ish.

Speaking of Astronomy, my last article for the Paisano is online right now! It's an article about the open constellation sessions that the astronomy and physics department here on campus is planning to do. They're opening the telescopes to the public and teaching people about stars, planets, and constellations around once a month. If I weren't goint to UT, I would definitely be attending!

Well, class is now in full swing, so I suppose I should pay attention now! (We're talking about renewable energy alternatives today.)

To the zoo! Or not.

Dad, Pippa and Tom came to visit again! We had plans of going to the zoo, but by the time we got off the highway, we realized that it wouldn't be worth it. The traffic to get off the highway alone took us about half an hour! So we turned around and headed downtown.



We ended up having a lunch/dinner (linner? dunch?) along the Riverwalk and then moseying over to see the Alamo (which was closed, since it was after 5 when we got there.

There is dad playing with his iPhone trying to use the GPS. (I have another picture that is practically the same from a few years ago while we were in Barcelona... except that he's looking at a map. Technology, ftw!)

And although it was closed, we made Tom pose for a picture, anyway!)


As you can see, it was both bright AND he was not happy to have his picture taken. (I think he is beginning to take after a certain other brother of mine!) This was him swinging his arms back and forth.

There's Dad and Pippa in front of the Alamo.

We had a lot of fun just hanging out and talking, and I am so glad they came down! Pippa even made a cake and I have been resisting the urge to eat even more of it. It's so good. (Thanks, Pippa!)

Channeling Hermione Granger (again)

I spent some time channeling Hermione Granger the other day and I drew up a revision timetable for myself. It's nothing fancy, but it's just what I need to accomplish every day in order to be prepared. It's color- (and font-) coordinated and quite fantastic, if I do say so myself.

Blue days are when I don't have anything to do, purple are the days that I study, and red are test days. You can probably see that I have a decent schedule of finals, even though I have a final on Saturday again.

The reason I'm putting it up on my blog is because Mom promised to not call me every day and ask me whether or not I studied everything I said I would.

And speaking of my mother, she said another amusing thing the other day:
"Mom, I drew up a revision schedule for finals this afternoon."
"That's great, except that nobody uses the word 'revision' in this country."

Sock Photography

I recently moved a lot of things back home, including a big stash of yarn that I have (mostly) been ignoring all year. I'm a student with a lot of things to accomplish, so knitting usually is set on the back burner. Well, it seems that because I have moved all of my yarn back to Austin I have suddenly sprouted the insatiable urge to knit and finish those second socks that have been sitting around for a while.

So here I bring you three pairs of socks, with beautiful photos taken by moi.

First: the "Pond Socks"


(Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock, flavor "Edgewater", started July 08 and finished April 09, pattern Thuja. These will go to Brandlyn.)

Second: "Shelly"



(Claudia Handpainted Fingering weight, flavor "Shells on the Beach", started September 08 and finished April 09. No particular pattern, just the cables across the foot. These will go to Mom.)

Third: "Taos Socks" (Needs a better name...)


(Noelle's Noodles Fingering weight, flavor "Taos", started January 09 and finished February 09, no particular pattern, just the 2x2 rib. These don't have a destination yet.)

Ouch

There's a handy new feature for blogger, where people can blog via text message. I decided to register my phone for it, although the likelihood of me blogging from my phone is quite slim, but you never know. I could be somewhere and breaking news will occur. I don't have a problem tweeting from my phone, but if I'm going to blog I'd like to make it a little more in-depth. It's what I owe to you, my readers, who read my blog for, ya know, the content.

But anyway. So I registered my phone for mobile blogging, and I received this text message in return:



Does that hurt anyone else? Am I alone in believing that abrvtng ur wrds s, lik so annoyng? Sure, I'll lol and brb, but I really don't like internet speak. As a person who speaks English, it bothers me. As a person who likes to write, it bothers me too. And as a person who is doing her darndest to get on a path toward editing for a living, it REALLY bothers me.

I miss vowels. Thanks, bloggr.

Muses and Pianos

So I'm back in San Antonio. I had a fabulous weekend with my family and I had a wonderful Easter day. Mom hid a bunch of eggs in our yard and had Dunc and I running all over the place. See her blog for pictures!

Even though I'm back at school, today was a very good day! My french class was canceled, and it didn't seem worth it to trek back to my apartment for forty minutes, so I sat in the Main Building and read a bit of the New York Times. There was another article about the changing tides of newspapers, and I honestly felt a bit guilty about having taken the paper for free. But the NYT puts free copies on our campus and so I will take advantage of that. In my English class I managed to sound intelligent even though I hadn't read what I was supposed to, and then in my Astronomy class, I received a review lecture on the Earth and the rock cycle. (Well, it was a review for me who has been learning this stuff in Geology all semester!) (...I thought I was in an Astronomy class... what's this about the Earth...)

My friend Oriana (who I went clubbing with a few weeks ago) sent me a text this afternoon and asked if I wanted to go to a piano concert with her tonight. I, being the piano enthusiast (pianthusiast?) that I am, agreed and looked forward to seeing whoever would perform. It turned out to be a Canadian woman, Angela Cheng, who was a very good performer and player. She was great! She played "Sonata in C major, L. 60" by Franz Joseph Haydn, "Piano Sonata No. 31 in A flat Major, Op. 110" by Ludwig van Beethoven, "Arabesque in C Major, Op. 18" by Robert Schumann, and "Fantasy in C Major, 'Wanderer' D. 760" by Franz Schubert. And two more that were not listed on the program. One of them was a Nocturne by Chopin, but I don't know which one it was. The concert made me miss my beloved piano at home. But I came home, and while my dinner was in the microwave I played a bit on my keyboard.

So this afternoon I picked up a book at our school bookstore that I just had to buy after thumbing through it for a few minutes. It's called Fondling Your Muse by John Warner. It's a hilarious book about advice to the "writerly aspirant". Just the dedication should give you a clue as to how the whole book reads:

"This book is dedicated to you, by which I mean me, myself. I say you because when I read it, I know that I'm talking about myself. I don't want you to think that it's dedicated to you, the reader, when I mean me, the writer. It would be silly to dedicate a book to someone like you, who had nothing to do with writing it- don't you think?"

I've only read thirty pages of it so far (It was what I did during my "nap") and have giggled my way through every page. I am really looking forward to reading more of it!

Monday, Friday, Friday

Is it just me, or does every day feel like a Friday this week? And not even the good "Oh, I can finally relax, cause it's Friday!" kind of Friday, but the "Gosh how long is this week going to last?" Friday. I've woken up every day feeling disappointed that the week isn't over yet.

I do have a reason for anticipating Friday, and it's not because of my weekly date with an afternoon nap. I'm going home on Friday, and I'm really excited about seeing my family. It's Easter Weekend, and I am glad I can spend it with my family.

My week has gone well, if slowly. On Monday I took an Astronomy test (no grade on that yet) and on Tuesday I took a Geology test (I got a B) and my next test is a History test, which is in two weeks. And after that.... Final exams. I can't believe I'm almost done with my freshman year of college, but it sure feels good.

Over spring break, I was interviewed for a nanny position by a family with a beautiful daughter named Emma, and since then I have been waiting anxiously for an answer from them. Jenny, the mother, called me this morning and told me that I had the job, and I am very excited and relieved to have an answer. Emma was born in January, and will be the youngest child I have ever cared for. I am really looking forward to my summer, now! And like Mom told me this morning, "Now you can focus on exams!" (Yay?)

Speaking of things my mother says that amuse me, I told her about an article I read in the New York Times yesterday and she replied with, "You've started reading the New York Times?" Yeah, I know. Crazy, right? I guess I'm growing up.

Well, I have a busy day, today... a Paisano meeting and I'm meeting a girl tonight to work on a French project.

Geology class is in full swing now. (The professor is wearing a blue UTSA hat today, by the way.) We're still talking about nuclear waste. I suppose I should take notes.

A-C-E!

Today, I went to Brandlyn's cheerleading competition in downtown San Antonio. They did REALLY well this time. Here's the video!



We had a few hours to goof off, so we went to the Alamo and walked around.


I took a cool picture of the fountain in the back.



I would write more here, but I am afraid it's just one of those nights and I have quite the splitting headache.

What's that thing in the East?

Oh yeah, it's the sunrise. Haven't seen that in a while.

I rarely see the parking lot this empty... I walked straight through it today diagonally. I usually have to zigzag through the hundreds of cars. It turns out that 7:00AM is THE time to find prime parking.

Constellation session this morning went really well, and though there were scattered cirrus clouds (aren't those the feathery ones?) clouds that occasionally blocked our view, we were able to see a lot of the normal things. Big dipper, north star, a binary star, and a few constellations. And this time it wasn't so cold that I have to come home and defrost.

I hung around and chatted with the two astronomy professors (who called me masochistic for coming so often... this was my fourth!) and my professor for this semester gave me permission to skip class this afternoon. I plan on using that time to sleep!

I dragged two of my classmates off to another building to do the homework we have due this week after the session. It took all of 15 minutes and then complained the whole time. ("I just want to go back to bed!", "The sun isn't up!") But we got it done and they'll have homework to turn in this time.

Honestly, I'm not sure whether or not I'm going to go to my morning classes. I know that I should, but I haven't (really) slept in nearly 24 hours. I took a nap, but that hardly counts.

Oh yeah! I forgot to pick up a newspaper yesterday, but I grabbed one this morning and my latest article is on the front page again! Here's the link if you want to read it.

Well, I have yet to crash, but we shall see what happens as the caffeine from the coffee I made 3 hours ago wears off. Good morning to all! :D