OK, bad thing, I'll probably be pulling an all-nighter tonight.
But good things!
-John has Microsoft Access, so I don't have to go back downtown to the library tonight! Silly software problems...
-I got a 92 on my Fish and Wildlife Ecology exam on Monday,
-I'm pretty sure I did really well on my Environmental Studies 113 exam, especially on the question that I completely guessed at random and got right, according to the professor,
-Friday I'm going to wrap caramels and make chocolate-covered pretzels at my aunt Jeanell's place,
-Saturday is Manske family Christmas! My grandma and grandpa go south every winter, so we have Christmas before they go. Which means ridiculous amounts of yummy food and general good times,
-Bob started the 'm' word conversation, and is in complete agreement with me that living together only means that we're living together!

Woo, other good stuff, but I need to start this project. I just felt like I had good news to share. :)

So Bob, after over a week of being sick, finally managed to infect me this weekend. I'm sniffly and groggy, but my sore throat is already gone, which is nice. So now I just need to go to work from 8:55 until 1pm, then discussion, then meet with my adviser (carrying my bag with rubber boots and hauling my laptop in addition to my already heavy backpack), then spend a few hours in a dank swamp collecting data until 7pm, 'cause THAT'S going to help. I'll need more tissues. :(

But I should cheer myself up. October 4 my mom, Mike, and all my bruvvers came to see me and wish me happy birthday! We went out to eat and got way too full, then came back to the apartment and ate cheesecake. Mmmm. And, Bob got me a massaging Shiatsu chair (at first I was like, way to be romantic there, Bob, but after sitting in this thing for a minute I LOVELOVELOVED it!) and John and Todd got me Spore! Because they want me to fail at life, presumeably. :P
Then on my actual birthday we had lunch at the Nitty Gritty so I could get my mug of root beer. The only alcohol I consumed that day was a shot Allison bought me called a Dirty Girl Scout, which tasted minty and burny.

AND! I got an A (one of the few out of the class, apparently) on the 113 paper Todd helped me with and I got above 100% on my first 349 exam. Two As this semester, since my first Bio exam was crappy. Ah well. Off to work!

It's Phaze again, so there shall be pictures at some point. Um. Class has started and such. Oh well. More on my super-exciting life laterz.

John lies. Moving could have been worse, but I was thoroughly broken for a bit afterward.

MUCH love to everyone that helped us, though. I do agree with that completely. :)

Okay, sorry.
I realize that this'll matter to no one else but me, but it freaked me out this morning.
Before I came home, I had no idea when I'd be back in Madison so I told the people I interviewed with for jobs that I'd be back the day after Memorial Day. I hadn't actually asked Mom when she'd take me back, but I figured that she'd have Memorial Day off and could take me back. Turns out that she'd been planning on me staying until this Saturday, when my cousin Desi is having her baby shower (yay for soon-to-be Jack DeJong!) in Racine, then I'd be dropped off in Madison on Mom's way back home.
So...
Emails come! I have a job! I should come in on Tuesday!
...
Yeah.
So I asked them really nicely to extend my starting date to next Monday. They replied that it was fine, but the email seemed kind of...terse.
And then my mentor for my research project asked me to meet him, along with another professor and his intern for a meeting today. And I wasn't in Madison at all, and felt terrible because these people had to rearrange their schedules on my account. It just made me feel like I'd lied to these people about when I was available, and had changed my plans and been unprofessional.
A few hours after the first post, I see I've over-reacted as usual. It's not a huge deal, but it just makes me feel that I've started out with these people on the wrong foot, which kind of sucks because letters of recommendation from these people would be fantastic.
Ah well.
On a happier note, Mom took me shopping today since nothing I own is girlie enough for a baby shower, apparently. No skirt, sorry John, but I actually do look sort of feminine and such. Maybe I'll post pics later. :P

SHITSHITSHIT.

I've messed up, and now I'm a liar.

So, currently I'm unemployed, and wish to rectify this.
I've been spamming my resume to likely looking jobs on the UW Job Center for over a week, and I've had a bunch of rejections, three interviews, and another one today. But the thing is, I've completely forgotten which job this interview is for, which might be a problem...
Weeeeell, it's in Russel Labs, so it's probably one of the generic lab/research jobs I applied for...we shall see!

So, my finals are oddly arranged. I have four classes, and two of them had in-class finals on their last day of class. So I'm already half-way done, woooo! And I must say that Geog 339, environmental conservation, was a big of a joke. I started it, workin' through, truckin' along, when I see that I've finished. I look at the clock. A whole ten minutes have passed. I recheck my answers, which takes another five minutes. I shrug, turn it in, and grab smoothies with Jacqui and Greg, my fellow BAC majors. My Geog 305 was pretty nice too, but not that freaking easy.

Anyway, during actual finals week I have a Bio 151 exam on Sunday. Who schedules an exam on Mother's Day?! I'm very bitter about this, as I could have gone to BRF for the weekend and seen my family, but nooooo. I shouldn't complain too much though, I suppose, since mine is at 12:25 and Bob has one the same day at 7:45...in the AM, mind you. And I was getting kind of worried about this exam, since the professor has had to cram all of taxonomy into less time than is reasonable (for example, we took two days to cover protists and fungi, two days to cover invertebrates, and then one class period to cover ALL vertebrates...Class Mammalia was squeezed in four minutes before the bell rang). But since all the current grades for that class are on Learn@UW, I decided to check out where I'm standing. I'm at a B right now. If I got 100% on this exam, I wouldn't be guaranteed an AB. As long as I got above a 36%, I'd still get a B. Motivation to continue studying: 0%. Which is why I'm on Livejournal, yay!

For ILS/Hist of Sci 202, I have a paper that's due by next Saturday, the 17th. Instead of turning it in early and going home, I'm going to chill out here, work a bunch more shifts to get moneys, and generally laze about and enjoy myself. I'm also not motivated to write this paper promptly. The class is graded nearly entirely on three papers: first one, I did the night before and got an A. Second one, I turned in a week late, also done the night before, and got an AB. And the TA is not an easy grader, either. :P

And then...I don't really know. I have a research project that's a two-credit independent study over the summer. I'll be wandering around in the woods with a GPS backpack identifying trees for credit, which will be nice. And I have a summer course that starts in July...but as of yet no job. I've sent out applications, but haven't heard anything back yet. I'm getting kind of tempted to just be a drug guinea pig at Covance like my brother did. He got to sit around on his ass reading and playing video games for two weeks, and made more than I would make working like a dog the entire summer. Hmmm.

Anyways...I should probably be studying a bit more for my exam, for all the good it'll do me.

Aww, I like that Tick...tick...Boom! song. And it lets me copy Ben and use lyrics as entry titles! It looks like someone has a case of the clevers...

Anyway, I had to return a few overdue books, so I walked down to College Library. I'll miss being this close next year (ONLY thing I'll miss about this apartment), because it was absolutely lovely. This afternoon was wonderfully warm and sunny, and right now it's just slightly cool with a delicious breeze. I got a cookies and cream sugar cone at the Union, and just stood outside in the dark watching people and smelling all the flowers that are coming up. Glorious. It made me think of the word sensual, and what a shame it is that that word is so sexualized, because that was exactly how I felt. Just feeling and tasting and smelling absolute summer-ness. So, so very happy I'll be spending the summer in Madison. The only thing that would would make it perfect would be if the city wasn't bright enough to block out most of the stars. Black River Falls is nice that way.

Anyway, now I'm rambling when I should be studying. Ah well. Just three tests and a paper to go of the semester!

Current Mood: mellow

I've posted about this song before:


I've decided to use this as my skydiving song. Because I'm skydiving. Tomorrow.

AHHHHHHHHHHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAYAYAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAY!

Hee, sorry, I like bragging about this. :) I'm also getting re-obsessed with that song - I've played it more times than I care to admit today.
I need to finish laundry/pack, work, get dinner with Bob, and leave tomorrow from the Union at 8 am. It's supposed to be rainy tomorrow, but nice on Sunday. Hmm. Anyways. I'm just feeling nervous and SQUEEEEEEE hyper and excited. XD

Current Mood: giggly

Today shall be the first day of REAL spring break.
Ben is coming!
Jenessa is coming!
Heather is coming! There will be Jamba Juice and random acts of silliness and all-around AMAZINGNESS! Jenessa has already suggested that we run up and down Bascom doing our interpretive dance of 'Wig in a Box'.

Oh, happy day!

I am intrigued.
Today the guy Jacqui and I sit with in Environmental Conservation said that he's a Biological Aspects of Conservation (like us!) and Geography major. At that point I realized that we were sitting in a class cross-listed with Geography. And that my Urban class was too. And I'd taken an intro geo course last semester to fulfill a B.A.C./Environmental Studies Certificate requirement.
I have a grand total of 13 credits in geography without trying. The Geography major is a minimum of 30 credits.
I just felt kind of silly for having nearly half a different major without knowing it, and for not considering double-majoring before. I hadn't thought about it because the concept of double-majoring sounded scary, but damn...I'd only need four more intro type classes, and then everything else would just naturally fall out of my B.A.C. major. I'm thinking about it...crazy.

So, theoretically, on paper anyway, I could major in Geography and Biological Aspects of Conservation, and get certificates in Environmental Studies and Integrated Liberal Studies. I'd probably have a really, really decent chance on getting into Grad School here as long as I kept my grades up, and I'd look marketable as hell. I'd have to take 16 credits a semester for four more semesters like I have for the last three instead of having the option of graduating a semester early or just taking light credit loads senior year, but meh, that's not such a huge deal.

But basically, I HEART cross-listing!

Other than that, I haven't done anything exciting. I had to cram a paper last night, I really should write or start writing that paper due Friday, and I have an exam tomorrow. This weekend I shall sleep the sleep of the just (the just tired). And then on Sunday....

AVENUE Q!

Quotes that I really don't think I should put on facebook, but still make me laugh...

(After I went to the bathroom several times to stopper blood loss)
Todd: "What the hell, do you have a waterfall coming out of there or what? You could dam that. And then hook it up to a generator and power small appliances."

Todd, examining my torn box of dryer sheets: "Why did you open it all gimp? Carly, are you retarded?"
Me: "Give me back my Snuggle, you bastard!"

(After a four hour Made to Order shift in wet shoes)
Me: "...And I stepped in a puddle on my way to work, and my shoes and socks are still wet. I probably have trench foot. "
Bob: "You just want me to rub your feet, don't you?"

Blah. Not the most fun day on record, except for the bits where I was giddy as hell.
And I'm actually getting fairly concerned about something in my otherwise peachy-keen life, but I'll wait a bit and see if it gets resolved before I write anything I regret later.
 

OK, I woke up a bit more than an hour ago, and felt really strangely nice. I was trying to explain it to John, but the closest I could come to it was saying that it felt like spring, even though it's still the tail-end of January. I thought about it some more, and I think I can qualify it.

I felt like it was late spring, warm during the day (I went to bed wearing a T shirt instead of long sleeves) but cool enough at night that I haven't taken the extra blankets off my bed, but it still feels good to sleep with the window open (obviously, I didn't do that last night). And waking up, just the quality of light (it's actually light out when I wake up!) and the temperature of the air, slightly cool, crisp, but just right under the blankets...made me feel oddly peaceful.

Clearly I'm on drugs. I'll keep an eye out for skiing elephants.

Someone pointed out that I haven't posted in a long time...now I am! Huzzah!

So, current things I'm feeling angstily depressed about:

My brother Jordan. Today is his 22nd birthday, and I can't reach him because apparently his cell contract ran out and he hasn't gotten a new one yet. No "Happy Birfday, Baho!" over the phone makes me sad. And he may not be able to afford a new cell plan, because, well, The Department of Education has been calling saying that he hasn't been paying his loan. Since October. I had no idea how expensive his school must have been, dad says that his parent's portion alone is around $18,000, so I assume that Jordan's share is similarly scary looking. And he dropped out, so he's not even going to be gaining any useful degree. I'm getting kind of worried about him, he could be living on the mean streets of Sun Prairie or something and I wouldn't know.

My dad. In the same phone conversation, he told me that he's been out from work for two and a half weeks due to excruciating back pain. He's been sleeping and chewing Vicodin and Flexerol all this time, and he never mentioned it the times I called because he 'didn't want me to worry.' GAH! How would he feel if I got run over by a car and didn't tell him until after I'd left the hospital and recovered?

[On a related note, I figured out that if my parents had stayed together, they'd have their 30th wedding anniversary this year. But imagining them still together is kind of like wondering what it would be like if I lived on the moon...not angsty so much as sort of interesting to think about once in a while.]

What happened in my Conservation class today, and not in the normal 'all humans suck because we kill stuff' way. I have this class with Jacqui, who lives on Bob's floor and I sort of know, so we sit next to each other. Anyway, relatively long story short, she said during class that her definition of an atheist was someone who only cared about themselves. I'm not angsty about Jacqui, she's entitled to any opinion she wants, but my complete lack of reaction to her, to me, offensive and hurtful comment. I did nothing. I'm assuming that she doesn't know that I'm a godless heathen, because she was otherwise really nice to me. I feel now like I should have said something, even if it was ambiguous like 'That's a broad generalization' or something. I'm not very combative usually, but usually I'm not insulted to my face either, and I think some combativeness would have been appropriate. So I was just kind of disgusted with myself for putting more value on maintaining inter-personal relationships than standing up for myself. I dunno.

Pretty!
Today I've been thinking too much about cogs and clockwork. Perhaps I should remedy that by going and doing more Christmas shopping...yay consumerism!

Current Mood: creative

Tra la la, I have two papers due tomorrow...

In other developments, it looks like we'll be kidnapping Bob for a day on the 22nd. I get done the 21st, he gets done the 21st. I have a ride on the 22nd, he was looking for bus tickets. I live on I-94, pretty nearly exactly half-way between Madison and St. Paul. A Plan! So he'll spend the night the 22nd before heading the rest of the way home the 23rd.

For some reason, I am disproportionately geeking out about this. When he visited during the summer for a week, my little brothers were in Iowa and Mike was working in some other state, so Bob met my mom and dad...2/7 of my actual family. He's never met any of my brothers or Mike before, so he will be inundated with teasing, I'm sure. It's just...for some reason I'm insanely excited to see my brothers. Of course when I lived at home I couldn't stand them, but now I miss the little boogers like crazy. I feel like...I'm no longer partly responsible for how they turn out. Like...well, after mom and the asshole divorced, Jordan and I (translation: I did all the work) would babysit from the time we got out of school until Mom got off work at 9 or 10. So, 5 to 6 hours a day during the week. I still have responsibility/guilt issues. I am responsible, ergo, if anything goes wrong it is my fault. Example: if Aaron gets in a fight with Austin or Sean and I put him in his room and he screams at me until he's hoarse, and then several weeks later he's reprimanded at school for getting in a fight with someone else, it is my fault because I chose the wrong disciplinary tactic and as a result Aaron is a maladjusted youth. It's a sign of egocentrism, I'm sure, to assume that I had a major impact on his personality development what with the whole nature/nurture debate.  The mind is not logical, I realize. But there's no way I can be responsible now! And none of them are messed up because of me! Aaron's actually the best student of the three! HaHA! In yo' FACE!

I'm just giddy as hell to show my brothers off to Bob and show Bob off to my brothers. Hehe, whenever I talk to Sean on the phone one of the first things he says to me is "So, Carly, how's your manfriend Bobby?" and I laugh...Sean and Aaron will tease him, Aaron being more rude and obnoxious about it. Austin will sit back and observe, possibly peeved that he's being kicked out of his room. Too bad Bob won't be able to bring his sword this time...but we will definitely bring Portal, and Sean and Austin will be amazed and argue over who gets to play it on my laptop...

Why am I so excited about this?! When Bob met my parents I was stressed about everyone getting along and liking each other, but I think this is just going to be hilarious.

Or it'll be a terrible flop. Like my grade if I don't start working on papers. If only I had the same level of enthusiasm for them as I do right now for Livejournal...

...but I haven't posted for two weeks, and I want to waste some time before I go to work at 11.
Finals week = stress as usual. I'm especially annoyed with my Energy and Resources class, because our professor has changed the date/time of the exam three times now. Student Center originally had it planned Friday the 21st from 7:25-9:25 pm. Which he thought was a horrible time if people wanted to travel home (I heartily agree), so from the goodness of his heart he wanted to change it to Friday the 14th 3-5 pm. That would have been wonderful, since then my last exam would be Wednesday the 19th, early in the morning, and I could have gone home early (Mom doesn't want me riding in Jordan's death-trap anymore, so she's going to pick me up and I don't have to coordinate with Jordan's work schedule! Woooo!). But enough people in the class bitched and moaned that he's thinking of moving it back to the regularly scheduled spot on the 21st.  Frustration.

We're having a Christmas party thing on the 13th! Yay! Basically I wanted a time when everyone could be in one place before break so I could give them their presents, but now I don't know if they'll ship in time. So that would be really, really sad. And right now I don't know what else we're doing the 13th. Perhaps stare at each other and say things like, "So...how 'bout that Jesus? Doesn't he say the darndest things?" And then awkward silence. Although I must get Bob to bring 'Santa Claus Conquers the Martians' ! It looks like great fun. And then probably video games. :P

Friday John, Todd and I went cheering-up shopping at the mall, where I tracked Jordan down at work to get a schedule out of him for Saturday, SINCE HE NEVER ANSWERS HIS PHONE. I then proceeded to buy underwear...which is so much more interesting with running commentary.

So after malling, Culvers-ing, and Targeting, the hanging of pretty lights and other stuff, sleeping, etc. Jordan proceeded to be an hour and a half late the next day. There was some unpleasantness with phone calls that morning.

But anyway, the truly epic part of this Thanksgiving was the drive. I believe I've extolled the death-trap qualities of Jordan's '91 Geo before: the one headlight, the non-functioning wipers, the bald tires, the doors that only open from the outside. Add to this the fact that about a month ago his passenger side window was smashed by miscreant ruffians and he has done nothing about it since. Well, that's a lie, he brushed the glass off the seat  yesterday just for me. What's really silly is that he always leaves his doors unlocked specifically so people won't break his windows trying to get in, and then subsequently find that there's nothing of value to steal.

So I'm bundled up in my heaviest winter gear, with a huge blanket, while the wind of the highway blows in my face for two hours. I'd planned on finishing off one of Bob's books, but I didn't want it to get wet. Because it was raining. And as we headed north it turned to snow. Both of which I became intimately close with. So that was delightful. Along with the fact that Jordan's windshield wipers don't work at all, so he exclaimed, "I'll just pretend I can see!" Apparently he could line up the marks on the road with the marks he could see in his rear-view mirror, and stayed between the lines that way. And since we were an hour and a half late, he went 75-80 the entire way. Yeah.

Two hours later, thoroughly popsicled, we arrive and are absolutely inundated with fooooooooood. Oh yummy. Oh joy. Oh WARM! I hugged Sean and then Austin for about ten minutes, telling them I was stealing their warmth, and by extension their souls. My 96 year old Great Grandmother Wussow came too, and she and Mom totally geeked out over my copy of  Wisconsin Death Trip, which Cory had gotten me for my birthday.  And I saw my kitty! SQUEEEEE! I walked downstairs to the basement, said "Piper!" and she came running out of whatever hole she hides in while I'm gone. Also got to play with Sean and Austin and their friends Nathan and Keith (Aaron had elected to go hunting with one of Mom's uncles, it being opening day and such). Although of course we got carried away and I got elbowed in the nose.

After we'd been packed up with leftovers, and Jordan had ripped out the guts of the old computer and taken the good components and also a spare mini-fridge from the basement that he's going to install in his room for food and booze, we went over to Dad's. On the way, he discovers that while putting the mini-fridge in the backseat he'd slammed the door too hard and the locking mechanism completely broke. "Three functioning doors out of four isn't bad." He'd also told the story of the drive down, and Mom had freaked out and gone to Wal-Mart to buy him wipers, increasing the value of the Geo Off-Road Edition by $20 or so.

At Dad's a good time was had. I ate more food and hurt myself. Dad asked Jordan if he was planning on going back to school. Jordan tells Dad about his plan to be a professional guinea pig for the drug company Covance. Dad laughs himself into incoherency.  As  we  leave and I'm covering myself in multiple layers, Dad again starts laughing uncontrollably.
"Are you laughing at me?!"
"Kinda, yeah."
But Dad saves the day, introducing Jordan to the revolutionary concepts of duct tape and clear plastic. On the way home around 8, there is no wind! I'm not freezing! But the extremely loud flapping of the plastic five inches from my right ear was unpleasant. I fell into a turkey coma anyway. I was dropped off at my apartment an hour and 45 minutes later (based on the fact that he shaved 15 minutes off the travel time, I assume he was going 80ish the whole way, in the dark, with one headlight and no brights), and discovered I'd been partially, temporarily deafened in that ear. I then proceeded to sleep for 12 hours.

One of my most memorable Thanksgivings, anyway.

---------------
I just now realized that there are an embarrassing amount of tense changes in this entry, but I need to take a shower and such and don't care enough to do an edit job. Peace out.

Current Mood: amused

http://www.slate.com/id/2177971/pagenum/all/#page_start

[Relevant excerpt]
"Family court judges cannot possibly do what they are charged with doing each day: split families in half without devastation. No mathematical formula can turn one income into two or allow the finances that supported one household to support two of them. Overnight, two full-time parents may be reduced to two half-time parents (in the best cases), and one child is magically expected to appear at two Thanksgiving dinners each year. It sucks."

Poor judges. My heart, it bleeds for them.
So yeah, I can't make it to Dad's Thanksgiving this year at Grandma and Grandpa's. I unwittingly chose the wrong sequence.
See, to try to get home on time this Friday, I thought I'd need to call Dad, Mom, then Jordan. What I was hoping would happen would be that Dad would say that it was alright if I showed up late, at 7; Mom would tell Mike to pick me up; and I'd tell Jordan that he wouldn't be picking me up on Saturday, since Jordan works Friday and Sunday so can only come to Mom's anyway.

This was all predicated on what Mom said when I talked to her on Tuesday, that Mike 'usually' comes through Madison around 5pm on Fridays on his way home from work for the week, and that I could theoretically be in town by 7. This was a half hour conversation, immediately following the forty minute conversation with Dad, during which I said I could probably get home Friday if I got a ride with Mike.
So yesterday, I called Dad wondering if 7 wouldn't be too late: it wasn't. Then I called Mom, who tells me that this weekend Mike is actually coming from St. Louis, and won't be home before 9 or 10. Plan shot down. Plan shot down HARD.
So now I need to call Dad again to tell him that I actually won't be there tonight, and call Jordan to tell him that he needs to pick me up by 10am. Originally when I called him earlier this week, I'd asked if we could leave around 2, so I could still do lunch and Mutants and Masterminds with Bob, so that's what I'd planned on. But Mom wants to eat by noon. So I'm missing yet another gaming session, my third, due to family scheduling stuff.

So, I tried. I tried really hard and failed to coordinate everything, and I feel incredibly shitty. So when I read that article in Slate commiserating with the poor family court judges, and not, say, one of the children that saw their parent killed during a custody exchange, I was somewhat...irked. Oh, shouldn't worry about it, kids are so resilient, you know. Bounce pretty well.

And I'm not going to Grandma's Thanksgiving Day thing either. Apparently Jenny couldn't make Friday either, so there will be some food on T. Day for stragglers. But I'm going to St. Paul, because I told Bob I would back when I thought I'd be able to make Friday, and now Bob has made transportation plans and everything, and I'm NOT going to change my plans on him again. I've already done that at least twice with different family plans changing at the last minute.

But now I won't see my Myers relatives until Christmas (...possibly) and I'm a bad daughter/grand-daughter/niece/cousin. I'm fully aware that I'm making too big a deal of this, that dad and everyone would be fully understanding that I couldn't make it for reasons beyond my control, but I still feel like shit. I'm allowed to be a whiny angsty bitch on occasion.

Oh, fuckey. I was supposed to read Paradise Lost for today.

Current Mood: crappy