Happy Happy Happy, Joy Joy Joy

So, for the benefit of those of you who only follow my lame mental wanderings here- I passed like, 2 whole tests.

I'm excluding the "mastery tests" in my animal class, because they were open book, and more along the lines of "can you read and chew gum at the same time" type questions. Not quite as bad as :

"all mammals have gills- true/ false?"

But close. Very very close. and open lab book. Where you could put all the info you wanted, so long as it was handwritten. I'll let you guess how much info mine has in it. Wait, let me give you a clue. That's just about the only thing I write by hand, is just about the only thing I've written by hand in the last ten years or so. Because on a good day my handwriting looks like it was done by a blind, left-handed 6 year old boy on crack. With his right hand.

So yeah, I passed! yippee skippy!

Now I just have to do my chem write up, and go to my physics lab tomorrow, and I'm done with labs for the semester, and I can go into crazy studying mode.

See, the theory is, if I can get almost an 80% studying 6 lessons for 4 hours, and that with a lot of stupid mistakes ( like writing someone elses name on your SAT form, but not quite), then I should be able to do way the heck better if I actually work through everything. Scary, I know.

Might I point out, for not the first time, I'm sure, that this whole final counts for almost everything way of grading is a very very bad thing for those of us with severe procrastination problems?

I mean, honestly, if you can pass the labs (show up, basically) and do good on the final, and still grab something in the mid 80's across the board, something's really, really wrong. And I don't study untill I have to. Note, this is a bad idea with science.

It's not like lit, where you can grab two books that might, perhaps, possibly have some sort of connection, grab a dozen or so quotes, and just write a paper around them. They actually expect you to remember this stuff. Scaaaaaaaa-ryyyyyyy.

If only arts was more interesting/ less something you can just about totally learn on your own, that degree would be soooo much easier.

In other school related news, I got free pizza yesterday. I ate almost one whole one, and about a liter of coke, and found out that if I fail miserably in my attempt to get in this semester, but pass my classes, I can always go home next semester. Hey, I could be in wyoming again for fall semester- and I'm sure they wouldn't count anything I've done here, so I could take all these classes again! wow, that would be... um... lame. Yeah, that's it. Lame. But back to here- I can go home, then come back for the semester after that. Cool, eh?

Which reminds me, I need to do my fafsa. Should probably get the numbers from my mother again... unless they are hiding deep in my e-mail. Which they probably are.

So yeah, fetal pigs- which were actually still born pigs. Odd how they only use an animal for one lab here, but I guess they just don't have time in a survey-type course to spend three weeks looking at all the neat-o stuff inside little dead pigs (says the vegetarian).

Hmm.. what else....

Oh, yeah, I remember- I got to listen to a great sales pitch (well, so far as any sales pitch offered by and science-type academic can be) about how all the people who fail miserably, but still pass animals and cells should investigate the ever interesting, and career-worthy fields of ecology, zoology, and environmental studies. On brightly colored (or coloured) paper. Exciting, yes?

Call me crazy, I think I prefer the smaller political field in your average vet practice or state senate to the nasty, underhanded backstabbing politics of academia. But that could just be me.

j.

lecture thoughts from tuesday

I am very proud of myself. I walked into the common room just as a baseball game came on. Heck, it was probably even live, since it was all of 11 am here- but back on topic.

There was a baseball game on- Yankees vs. boston. And yet where am I right now, and where was I after watching the first inning? Yep, you guessed it, actually in lecture. Does that mean I’m growing up? Nope

Does it mean I want to be in lecture? Nope.

Does it mean that the yankees are getting fat, and therefore not as interesting to watch anymore? Yeah, probably.

But mostly, it’s because there’s only about a week and a half left of lectures, and I really need to catch these- they cover stuff I won’t have time to learn as thoroughly as the ones I haven’t learned yet. Or something like that. Actually, this particular lecture isn’t really covered right in the study guide, so I can’t just go off what I can read.

I rather wish I could, though. He’s not reading right off the slides, or even his notes, but it might be better if he were. He’s made about 16 references to breasts so far, and we’re only 15 minutes into the lecture. I almost wonder if his wife just had a kid, or if he’s just obsessed with lactating women. Ooh- he did mention other animals once.

He also appears to be rather happy in the pants- not that I looked on purpose- it’s just kinda hard to miss.

Next time I get a choice between baseball, which drags on forever, with some hot guys- tho usually in the stands these days, or going to lecture, which drags on forever and ever, I am so staying in and watching the game.


j.

schoolwork epiphany

I have figured out why I don't study. I don't know why it took me this long.

It's so simple it's stupid.

Studying, no matter how "interesting" the subject matter, is still way the hell more boring than just about anything else I could do with the same time. Including cleaning toilets. And that's damned boring.

I think it's the sitting still part. Keep me interested, and I'll sit still for hours, days even. Give me something I don't want to get into, that's boring, and requires some actual thought, and there is no way in hell I have the self discipline to actually do it.

Example- I pulled down my stuff for cell bio and physics. My physics stuff actually has written on it how many problems go with each lecture. The next one has 23. My cell bio notes say what to read in the big bad bio book of death (+1), and that happens to be a whole boring chapter plus some other stuff. So I highlighted the lecture in my notes, and then went off to play lame games.
Why yes, I have study skills. Really. I can write papers on nothing, and get A's. Unfortunately, science wants papers written on *something*, or better yet, the current right answers to whatever the heck it is we're reading in the book/ zoning on in lectures. Silly science.

I guess I should go back to studying. If I keep cooking when I should be studying (eating is more important than grades, you know, so I don't feel bad about putting off boring reading for boring food) I'll be the goodyear blimp before the end of the semester. And that's really not a good look for me.

j.

movie ramblings

obligitory school related statements- I should be studying, It's sunday night, almost monday morning, and I should be studying. I've put myself on a budget for the rest of the month. I have 13 crazy-type spend how ever I want dollars left. I should need to spend no more on food. I have enough for a family of 6 for 2 weeks.

Ok, now onto what I want to blather on about.

You know how when you're a kid, you watch movies, and if you're really lucky, your family gets you hooked on good ones? Well, I bought a couple movies on friday. I think it was friday, anyway. One of them was My Fair Lady. Which has, for reasons unknown, been high on my best loved list since I was a little girl. I think it's the whole fairy tale thing to it. I mean, the poor girl, picked up by the rich, handsome, inteligent man, made all perfect, and brought to the ball. I mean, Professor Higgens is like prince charming and the fairy godmother all rolled into one.

Damn, but I love pygmalion.

And you know, when you don't see one of your favorites for a while, how you notice things you never did before? I mean, I always saw the bad lip synching, kinda expected. You can't look like you're belting out some song unless you really are. That I accept. And I'm still drop down, panting on the floor in love with the dresses (can I have the ball gown? I know I'm not that thin, but... wow...), but I mean, I'm noticing all this stuff I never noticed before. And I don't know if I'm looking at the story deeper, or what the heck is wrong with me. I always used to love being the kid that just kinda watched the movie, you know, pure entertainment. If I'm looking deeper at this one, what'll happen when I hunt down my other favorites and watch them again?

I mean, I really don't want to be put off of gigi just because the romantic-type female character is all of 14. Which is rather gross, I know, but I try not to think about it. I just love the story, ya know? Which is kinda strange, when I think about it, because if I had a little time machine, and I could go back to then or before, you bet your ass I'd rather be a mistress than a wife. Wife had to do all the crap jobs, and got none of the fun. I hear it's boring on a pedestal.

Or the King and I. It kills me enough watching it anyway. I mean, I realise it's a doomed love from the first, but still, does he have to die? I mean, seriously, people, why did they have to kill yul brenner off? He was hot! wow, a bit off topic there.

Seriously, tho. I really don't want to start thinking about characters deeper thoughts, and lives, and motivations, and how this or that movement just looks perfect for it, or how this or that would have made it better, or what the deeper meaning of this or that line was, or how it'd change if the inflection changed, or where the hell the light's coming from. I just want to enjoy my movies, ya know? It's like with books. You start tearing them appart, and I just lose the entertainment value of them. I don't know why. Wish it didn't happen. It's actually why I don't usually read poetry. I love the imagery, but I just want that, the top bit. I don't want to tear it appart. I have this nightmare that someday I'll make or write, or something something, and people will start disecting it, like "what she meant here was to comment on the meaningfullness of life" when it's a picture of my lunch, or a bit about the rain, or something stupid like that.

I'm convinced that all the poets and artists and writers and actors and whatnot who have their work torn apart are spinning in their graves, or else really hate reading reviews.

Hmm.. that wandered a bit.

So yeah, I love My Fair Lady. Enough to switch over my DVD drive to watch it. Wow, it must be love. GiGi next week. Breakfast at tiffany's if I can find it. Then on to the King and I. Hey, a girl needs a good cry every once in a while, right? Maybe that'll work. If not, I'm sure they've got last of the mohicans and legends of the fall here somewhere.

j.

Roommate update

First, let me say that they are all still alive.

And for future referance, they will be roommates a, b, and c.

well, sort of. You see, somewhere in here, I've gone from having 3 roommates, to having 4. Roommate A is still scared of just about everything (she's the american exchange student) roommate B has picked up her studying (she's the one that actually lives here) and roommate C (she's the one from china, for all of you playing along at home), well, roommate C has become my new worst nightmare. Partly because she cooks weird stuff, and keeps strange hours, but not totally. Hell, if I disliked her for that, I'd have to dislike me for it too. Oh, wait. I do dislike me. Nevermind.

The main reason for my new intense dislike of her is the way her boyfriend has moved in with her. Like, in our flat, pod, whatever. So random guy is using my toilet peeing on the floor like guys do, and random guy is snoring loud enough to wake me up in "their" room. And her and random guy are having freaky sex in the same shower I have to use.

Actually, I think I could deal with all of that except the last bit. It's that whole, If I'm not getting any no one else is either thing. Or maybe I just think it's wrong to get freaky in a shared shower. I mean, dude, other people have to use it too, ya know, and I really don't want to think about my roommate and her boyfriend in there. Together. Nekkid. Nope nope nope.

So now in my head, they have totally platonic fully clothed showers together in order to conserve water, and wash their clothes at the same time. Yes, indeed. Fully clothed. Yep yep yep.

So perhaps I actually should say roommates A, B, C1 and C2?

j.

Other lives

This has very little, I admit, to do with vet school. Forgive me, I'm just not in a school talking kinda mood.

Also, please forgive any strange wording, I've been hanging out with someone who's first language, hell, who's third language, isn't english. It's doing nasty things to my words.

So, tonight, as often happens, I was walking back from the common room, where I had been watching tv (the bobby jones movie, for those who care). And as also often happens, I looked up at the sky.

If my life were different, I sometimes wonder, and I'd spent time as a kid learning to really draw, putting time into it, rather than half assing art like I do everything else, Might I be able to paint that sky? Or photograph it, or sketch it, or hell, even describe it in a way that you coud see it, beautiful as it is, in your mind?

How would my life be different, I wonder, if I'd had something like that that I followed to distraction, something I was totally devoted to, something I actually *worked* at? How would *I* be different? And why the hell am I so damned introspective?

All this, just from looking up at the sky. Man, what I'd give to be able to reproduce that sky. I would have it on my walls, and embroidered into the ceiling of my room, and into the canopy of my bed, and tattooed onto the inside of my eyelids. It's just dark, and full, and perfectly lit. Hell, it's dark pastells. I could lie out under it for hours, days.

But I'm getting off topic, I think. How the hell do people know what they should *really* be doing? Is it what calls to you emotionally? What calls to your mind? Wanderlust? Bank ballance?

I would love to be an artist, but I'm not. Hell, I can hardly write my own name. Draw? Hah, there'd be rioting in the streets if I were to try that again. My mind tells me to be a vet. I'd be a good vet, I hear, deep in my silly little brain. I can be a vet, my brain tells me. I'd enjoy it. But what about travel, calls that wild part, the one that thinks being the worlds worst starving street artist would be a great life. What about all the things you could do if you didn't have bills? what could you do if you followed every whim? Where could you go? And then my little inner accountant pops up- but how would I pay the bills? I mean, I may be skinny, but I still need food. And I hear housing is nice, and heat, and clothes, even basic ones cost money. And that doesn't even touch on the supplies needed by an itinerant street artist.

I seem to come back to this point often in my crazy ramblings, both with myself, and with all the poor schmucks silly enough to read these several blogs that I stretch my bitching across. When do you give up all the people you *could have* been, all the things you could have *done*, and accept what you *will do*, who you chose to be?

And perhaps more importantly, How do you do it? How do you cut loose the dreamer? the kid that would sit out there with three dark blue crayons and one white one, trying to make the sky look right? The one that'd take off for someplace new, or just away, at 2am, even tho there's class in the morning? How the hell, I guess, do you grow up?

How do you make yourself *want to*?

I know I need to. But I don't want to. I want to be peter pan, only cuter. I want to live still in that place where I can do everything, be everything I ever wanted to. And I want to know why the hell life doesn't work like that. Why I can't be everything I want, and do everything I want. Why I can't have 80 hours in a day, and the actual drive to do the things I dream of. Why I can't be that person who says "I want to be this," and does it.

Oh, I know there's hard work involved in that sort of stuff. I know I'm very not about the hard work. I know I'm very about backing out and not committing. I know that if I have the choice to sit and watch tv or go for a run, I'll take a nap instead. I know that to some degree these things make me who I am. But I want to change them. Well, maybe not enough to actually do it, but I kinda want to change them, and that's gotta count for something, right?

it's just that, well, really, If I go and start doing all the hard work, become that boring person that I need to be, grown up and focused, and (ick, ick) hard working, well, would that still be me? Sometimes, when I'm being particularly stupid, I tell myself that out there somewhere is this, I don't know, perfect person for me (no, really, wait, it gets better (or worse, I suppose)) and they'll find me (or something like that) and we'll recognise each other as perfect for each other, and I'll become that person that actually tries, and does things, because I want this (mythilogical) perfect for me person to be proud of me.

And then I wake up and realise that not only do perfect people not exist, perfect for me people do not exist. And to make it worse, if they did, I'd probably kill them in ten seconds flat. And why the hell should I make myself better for someone else? someone else is more important to me that I am? WTF? I'm far more selfish than that. I should be the most important person I have. The one who's oppinion I care about first. Why the hell should I do something for someone else that I wouldn't do for myself. And do I honestly think I wouldn't try to kill someone eventually who spent all their time telling me what to do? Hell, my fathers lucky he's bigger than me, and he was only trying to get me to do dishes and my homework.

And I mean, how the hell do I know that what I give up everything else for is the right thing? Scary though this thought might be to some of you (ok, c, r, both of you) reading here, at one point, I thought my life would be perfect if I had a husband, 3 or 4 kids, and a couple of dogs. Yes, seriously. And no, it wasn't *that* long ago. And a part of me (a disturbingly large part, oddly enough) wants at least part of that now (I'll give you a hint- one part is old enough to vote, and the other runs around on 4 legs its *whole* life). And it seems like, being here, staying here, where I'm sure as hell not thinking I want to stay when I graduate, means not having that now.

And that might mean not having it later, either. If I were a guy, sure, fine. 32, 33, that's still just starting out for a guy. A guy just getting out of professional school at that age is fine, still a catch, plenty of good years ahead. A chick? Ha. Who the hell wants some 32, 33 year old chick just going after her first real job, with 200k in school loans hanging over her?

So what's the problem? I know me, that's the problem. I'm going to wreck this, and all because, cool tho I pretend it'd be, I don't want to be that lonely wacky aunt. I'm not wild enough to flit madly from one doomed affair to the next. Wish I were, life would be easier. I (mostly) look long term. It's a curse. I don't want to be alone. I don't know who I want to be with. Hell, I don't know who I want to be. But I don't want to do it alone. And I feel, I guess, at some point in my little j mind that if I stay here, I will be alone. Hell, I'm looking at getting into the program here, just so I can transfer into one of the two or three schools back home that takes transfers. Is that sick or what?

And it's not that I'm homesick, so much, anymore. It's more that... I don't want to live here for the rest of my life. It's great and all, really, but... There are places in the world, places that feel right, like home, even if you've never been there before. I thought amsterdam might be one, but I didn't spend enough time there. This is not a home. It doesn't feel right, the food isn't right, the pace is wrong. It's like charleston for me, only worse. It's not that it's a bad place, it's just... wrong, ya know? I mean, and maybe this makes me a snob, or maybe it makes me wrong, but... on long island, everything, even when I'm alone, or whatever, feels right. When I'm wandering NYC, even when I'm totally down, it feels right. It feels like home. Hell, I've never lived in the city, and it still feels right. The neighborhoods are gone (or so they say), the feel of the place has changed, and though I'd give anything for a time machine, to go back to when it was better (and everything was always better "before"), I'd still live there today, and love every minute of it. Parts of northern california I could do it in. I'm sure there's somewhere else, too, but... I haven't been yet.

But... what happens if I'm looking, not for mr. right, or mr. right now, but just mr. now, and mr. right walks in? what if he starts as mr. now, and changes, or I change. How the hell do you deal with that? Because I'm not selfless enough to stay here forever. And I'm not selfish enough to make someone move, just because I'm not happy where I am.

I think I've wandered a bit. I don't want to grow up. I don't want to be a grown up. Grown ups have to make choices about things I don't want to choose. I don't want to know the choice exists. I want to live in that perfect happy child-zone, where everything is perfect, and everything is possible, and you never have to choose. Do I stay single forever, do I become totally singleminded, like I know I have to in order to do this, or do I give up, and change everything, and become something I'm probably not, and just look for someone else to "complete" me? Why the hell can't I just sit under the beautiful, soft, perfect dark night sky, watching the clouds sweep past the stars, with the moon glowing wildly to the side forever?

totally off topic, but... I think being able to just watch the sky, damned near forever, would be the thing that would make life for vampires, if they existed, worth all the crap legend says the'd have to put up with.

j.