This morning, I walked out of my last class* at Emory. The asterisk is because it wasn't technically my last class, but the last class that I care about. The last class in which I learned anything. Dr. Starnes didn't actually lecture; she put together a little slideshow of images from the semester. The slideshow was set to "The Way We Were," by Barbara Streisand. Dr. Starnes made sure to point out the lines about "If we had the chance to do it all again..." SO CHEESY. Of course I cried. But just a little, like two tears. Shut up.

I still have one class left, Global Health. That exam is in a couple of days, and I'm sure it hasn't been written yet. On Wednesday, we were supposed to receive instructions for a take-home essay portion. On Friday, we were told that the instructions would be up on Sunday. It's still not up. At least I'll have something to say in my very last course evaluation. Should be fun.

My Panic factorial at the Disco CD just arrived, so I'm going to go have a listen.

In Global Health today, the class got to decide what we'd do. Continue a previous lecture, have an open discussion to help the prof brainstorm his next book, or watch another episode of the documentary series "Rx for Survival." Well, when describing one of the Rx for Survival episodes, Brown mentioned that Paul Farmer was somehow involved. People in the class started to freak out about it, for reasons passing understanding. One girl raised her hand and practically demanded that we see "the Paul Farmer one," before we'd even decided to watch the DVD in the first place. And then when we did vote to watch the DVD and had to pick an episode, people kept calling out "Which one's the Paul Farmer one?" It was exasperating. Brown said that the mention of Farmer was tangential at best, but my classmates weren't having that. Forget the actual subject matter, we want the Paul Farmer one! Because ...he's Jesus, or something.

However, despite the fact that he's supposed to be universally adored, there are apparently others in the class who were thoroughly unimpressed with Farmer. So we outvoted the Farmer fetishists, and ended up watching the episode about epidemics, called "How safe are we?" Dramatic, scary subject matter, but Kathryn and I still managed to have fun with it. I'll admit right now that we were obnoxious. Sorry! That's why I don't go to movies!

For example, Brad Pitt's dramatic VO: During the flu epidemic of 1918, people wondered if it was the end of the world as they knew it. caused us to look at each other and burst into giggles because we knew we were about to say the exact same thing. I was eventually able to choke out, "It's okay, I'm sure they felt fine."

And then they went on to explain how this scientist discovered that the 1918 flu was an avian flu. Yeah...that stopped the giggles pretty quickly. Until Kathryn leaned over to me and whispered in a frantic tone, "What was this one called? 'Are we gonna survive?'" And I lost it. You probably had to be there, but the panic in her voice was just too funny. And "Are we gonna survive?" is a lot more realistic a title than "How safe are we?" Because the answer is, not safe AT ALL.

After class, Kathryn and I made awesome plans to go play trivia at Mellow Mushroom tonight. Problem: I forgot that I had two meetings this evening. First Relay for Life, and then APhiO exec. So much for that awesome plan. So I went to those meetings. I actually managed to lose my wallet somewhere between Clairmont and White Hall, I'm guessing on the shuttle. I have a routine that's pretty well ingrained. Wallet goes into my bag just after I walk out of the apartment. I never even think about it. So it was a while before I realized that it wasn't in my bag. However, from the moment I realized my wallet was lost, to the moment a police officer returned it to me(debit card, $5 in cash, and key to the chemistry building all in their proper places), was maybe an hour. Thank goodness for honest Emory students.

After that, I went to Exec. My job is basically done, so I really just had Relay to talk about. Some people are going to be hard pressed to finish their hours, but hey. I can't check signups for them.

After exec, I hung out for a while and did some sigs.
Pledge: If your life could be a sitcom, or any TV show, which would it be?
Alli: I know, LaKedra would pick 24!!
Me: Um... is my name Jack Bauer? I'd be dead! In a day!
It made me kind of sad to realize that I won't be doing those anymore. I also want to pass on My Question™ so that its proud tradition can continue. I need to find a good, active freshman who'll keep it alive. You can tell a lot about a person by whether they'd prefer to lose an arm or sweat mayonnaise. Mainly you can tell if they're normal or REALLY ICKY AND GROSS!! (I answered "The West Wing" or "Scrubs" for the above question, by the way.)

Oh, and I set up a thesis submission appointment for next Friday at 11am. So, that's some forced motivation to get my revisions done by then. The real deadline isn't until Monday, but I'd rather get things in order before. That weekend's going to be crazy busy, with Relay, and Initiation, and Mortar Board induction.

Finally, bonus points for anyone who knows why my current music is stuck in my head!

Hmm, it turns out 24 can still surprise me every once in a while. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

Today was pretty rough. I think I fell asleep in Human Phys. I feel bad about that, but having to concentrate on cell-mediated immunity was asking an awful lot. I have to give Starnes credit for letting us go when she finished her lecture 10 minutes early. She's normally the type of professor who'd just think of something else to say, or some more details to give.

I tried to nap between classes, but that didn't work out. So I ran some errands, APhiO-related stuff of course. And I did a little bit of lab work. I have a lot of stuff, but now I have to make it actually sound like a paper and not just a string of graphs and tables. That'll probably be the hardest part.

Global Health was okay. We finally got our study guide for the midterm, which I do believe was supposed to be on March 8. Now it's scheduled for Friday, which is smack in the middle of Emory's second visit weekend. So I'll have to make that up, unless I decide not to go. That option is looking better by the second, actually.

Finally, chapter tonight was...epic. We did this planning conference thing, which I didn't think was going to be worth the time. I was pleasantly surprised, however. A LOT more people than I expected to stay were there the whole time! So that was nice. And I don't know abou the other areas, but I got some really good input and ideas regarding the service program. Well, I guess the stuff isn't so much for me, as for the next SVP, whoever that may be.

Tonight's episode of Project Runway was sooooo good. First of all, Jay McCarroll came back to judge, and that basically made my life. It was the perfect judging panel. Unfortunately, the designers were all pretty docile. None of them got the dressing down that Heidi Klum + Michael Kors + Nina Garcia + Jay could have done so beautifully. It was still good, though. And THEN, the designer I thought was out for sure, wasn't! So good.

Dr. Miller assigned about 60 pages of reading for tomorrow. I think that's normal, or even on the low side, for a 300-level history class. However, the reading is not available on e-reserve, there was just one copy on reserve at the library and we had to make copies. Anybody who thinks I had the slightest inclination to make that many copies, is mistaken. I skimmed part of the reading...class should be interesting. I was pretty vocal yesterday; maybe I can lay low.

I was also vocal in Global Health today. Dr. Brown was talking about the "Good Government" and "Bad Government" frescoes but couldn't think of the artist's name (Lorenzetti). I am Trivia Girl, hear me...spout random facts.

Busy day tomorrow.

Revolutionary France: Tues-Thurs, 11:30-12:45
I was going to drop this class. But I made the mistake of going. The professor, Dr. Miller, was kooky, and engaging (after a round of introductions she rattled off all 40 of our names), and went right into the first lecture. Which was really interesting, and has already tripled my knowledge of European history. So I'm staying, and taking it Pass/Fail. Because I am a dork.

So, 16 credit hours. Three actual classes. I am determined to be stress-free this semester. It's like three days before thesis committee rosters are due, and I just got around to asking professors if they'd be on mine. I'm asking one guy by email because he wasn't in his office when I went. This is something I'd normally agonize over. But I can't even bring myself to be worried. It'll work out, or it won't. After all, I only have to impress these people (meaning Emory in general) for three more months. Really, what's the difference between hearing my name on May 15, and hearing my name, "Honors in Chemistry"? Like, half a second.

I worked out yesterday for the first time in FOREVER. Basically, from the week before Thanksgiving to the end of the semester, I gave up on making time for the gym. That was a mistake. And then I was lazy all break. Another mistake. So, it's gym time!

Human Physiology: Mon-Wed-Fri, 9:35-10:25

Dr. Starnes seems really nice, but not the stupid kind of nice that doesn't get anything done. I think she's going to teach us a lot and still be cool. The class itself seems to be made up of mostly sophomores and juniors who are obsessed with the MCAT. Seriously, that's like all I heard in the before-class chatter. Poor kids. Was that really me just a year ago, all worried about taking the MCAT? It feels like I've lived a lifetime since then.

Starnes let us out pretty early, so I got a nice long break before my next class.

Intro to Global Health: Mon-Wed-Fri, 2:00-2:50

This is the first semester the class has been offered. They're planning to make a Global Health minor, but for now they're just testing things out. Basically the prof has only the vaguest ideas about how he's going to teach the class. I don't really care. Quote of the day: "Some of you might find this class a little simplistic. But if you're a second semester senior and don't mind coasting..." Whoo!

And that's it. Tomorrow I have a history class, that I might be dropping. We'll see.

I have an interview at Harvard on Valentine's day. Maybe I'll fall in love with the school, har har har. Anyway, I'm kinda sick of the whole interview process, but it's Harvard Med. I don't like it when people are overly impressed by names, but it's Harvard Med. I have to at least go see what it's like.

Friday Friday Friday Friday Friday Friday Friiiiiiidaaaaaaaaay!!!!

In stat mech, we actually talked about stuff that I'd seen before! Like determining whether a reaction is first order, second order, etc. through the use of actual experimental data. Now don't get me wrong, deriving some of the fundamental laws of nature is pretty cool. But they're important laws because somebody has already derived them, so it's not like there'd ever be a need to derive them again. Figuring out a reaction rate could actually be important in an experimental setting. However, since I don't see experimental settings anywhere in my future, I'm really just happy because I've seen this stuff before and it doesn't involve ridiculous amounts of difficult math.

Biochem...one of the most annoying 'ask a pointless question in an attempt to look smart' people is now being openly mocked by the rest of the class. There are the people who cough whenever she raises her hand, the people who call out her name mockingly, the people who see her raise her hand and say "What is it now?" and "Maybe I should just give you the chalk and let you teach the class." Oh wait...yeah, that was the professor. Great moment, that was.

NaNoWriMo update: I'm going to hit 20K tonight. So that's fun. As far as how the novel's going...I'd like to share with you all a quote from the "What is NaNoWriMo?" page:

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

So, yeah. I just want you all to understand the magnitude of the crap I'm writing right now. There's a lot of padding, like overly long "chapter" headings. There are digressions. There are pointless additions. For example, mistyping the name Eddie created a character named Edie who works for Eddie (more words!!) There's a character whose last name is van der Weyden just because that gives me three words every time I use it. There's a character who's an art history grad student, who exists for the sole purpose of spewing out all the art history information I have in my head. (More words!!) Trust me, it's BAD. But the point is to have fifty thousand words of BAD by the end of the month, so it's going well overall.

I went and used my prize from the DDR tournament to buy myself Season 4 of the West Wing. That's my reward for finishing my French paper and/or my art history paper this weekend. It's a pre-emptive reward, which will hopefully inspire me to work really hard on both. Because, OMG, I own one of the best long term story arcs on any show EVER made: "20 Hours in America" I and II. "College Kids", "The Red Mass," "Debate Camp," "Game On," "Election Night," and "Process Stories." I own Marion Coatsworth-Haye of Marblehead. I own the babies come with hats monologue!! And I'm not watching any of it until those papers are done. Talk about motivation.

I hate stepwise assignments. You know the ones. The actual assignment is due in a month. But until then, you've got a half dozen dinky things to turn in, one for each step of the process. First, a title and subject. Then an annotated bibliography. Then, an outline. Then, a revised outline. Then turn in your intro paragraph and thesis. And on and on and on. NO. That was only appropriate in sixth grade, for My First Term Paper™. I was ten years old, and clueless, and seven pages (handwritten, y'all) on comets seemed like a very daunting task. Mom had to drive me to the library, Dad had to help me look up big words like perihelion...things were different then. I am now twenty, and slightly less clueless, with a lot more seven page papers under my belt. If I choose to start working on a big paper the freaking day before, that is my choice as an adult. Because, and it really can't be said enough, I am a senior. Making me do a billion outlines takes that freedom away. It's oppression. I won't stand for it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have an annotated bibliography to finish.

Stat mech exam is going to kick my ass, once again. It's a pity...I had such high hopes for this one. I'm shooting for a 65. Yaaay, 65!

I started my day by calling the admissions offices of Yale and UNC, to schedule my interviews. UNC is in two weeks, on a Friday. Yale is the Monday after Thanksgiving. I didn't even pretend to care about classes or assignments I'd be missing. I've come too far for that.

Then I met with Dr. Kindt and we talked about Honors, and all these poster presentations and talks he wants me to give. Went straight from there to stat mech, where I realized that the exam is going to kick my ass. So that was kinda depressing. And worse, we got out of stat mech ten minutes late. Silly graduate students, don't you know that other people have lives, and OTHER things they need to do?

As usual, between stat mech and biochem, I checked my mail in all its forms, and bought food. The Thanksgiving food drive is on. I wonder how many hours worth of service will be put into it.

Biochem was sooo fun! Yay for mechanisms and stuff like that. There's this one chick in the class, who always asks the most ridiculous questions. I've talked about such people before..the ones who ask completely irrelevant questions in an effort to..get on the prof's good side? Make themselves look smart? Annoy me? Well, she succeeded at one of those. At one point, she asked a question that was ridiculously constructed and used the phrase 'using techniques previously mentioned'. At that point, my brain was so full of sarcastic comments that it was just overloaded. I was going to try to whisper one of those comments to LB, but then Heather, the girl next to her, repeated the "Using techniques previously mentioned" in the most hilarious voice. And I completely lost my shit. I was weeping. It took me a few minutes to compose myself. It was great.

Then right after biochem, I came to get my car, to pick up 4 other people for Sheltering Arms. That was fun, but tiring. I was with the one year olds. They don't sit still, ever. So that was a lot of running around. As soon as I got back here, I crashed and slept for two hours. Then I ate, started to look at flights, and tried to up the ol' NaNoWriMo word count a bit.

In an effort to pad my story with more words, I came up with this band that has accordions + drums + guitars + washboards...a blend of zydeco and hardcore punk. I christened this new genre 'zydecore'. Turns out I wasn't the only person crazy enough to think it up, but I think all the google results I found were also in jest. Somebody should actually start a real zydecore band. I'd buy tickets to that concert, oh yeah.

Back to writing for a few more minutes, then I've got to study.

French exam went pretty well. My heart just wasn't in any of the answers I gave. I wrote about the use of a slave ship as a mother image (yes, that's as twisted as it sounds), the "broken mirror" scene in Cahier de Retour..., Maryse Condé's description of Paris, and the...'destinataires' of Une si longue lettre. I don't know how to say destinataires in English. Audience..receivers?? Something. Anyway, I'm glad that's all done.

Art History was a blast. I love that class. We got into technical stuff today, talking about flying buttresses. Our reading for today was from Scientific American, which was a change from the usual stuff. It was obvious that Pastan was excited to discuss something that wasn't the usual deep artsy stuff. She's so funny. I think my favorite part was her emphatic "Pretend those aren't there! Those are additions, they're brand new." ...about structures built in the year 1240. Yeah, brand new, Dr. Pastan. The mortar's barely dry.

Now...I've got stat mech homework to do and biochem to study. Good times.

There were a LOT of volunteers at the Salvation Army warehouse this morning, but there was a LOT of stuff to do, so it was all good. I couldn't help but smirk at the people who were all shocked when the lady in charge pumped us up with a rousing "Who's ready to do GOD'S WORK??" I mean, come on. Salvation. Army. Think about it.

I was on the clothing team. Imagine the largest amount of clothing you've ever seen in one place, in your entire life. Now quadruple it. That might give a picture of how many clothing donations there were to sort. The sight of it managed to warm my heart and fill it with dread at the same time. The three hours went quickly though, and we got a lot done. I must give props to the people who donated neatly folded clothes that were already sorted and labelled (boys clothes 3mos-12mos, women's pants, etc.). To the people who dump off whatever dirty, ratty, unusable crap they wanted a chance to get rid of: that shit is worse than just not bothering to donate at all. It's just like, "Here, you throw this away." Just because people don't have anything, doesn't mean they deserve to get your unusable trash, assholes.

Well, I feel better now. Other than that, it was a good time. Plus we had all the bubblegum we could chew. Bubblegum makes it all worthwhile.

In academic news, I don't know what hubris made me think I could survive statistical mechanics. I'm already in survival mode. That means, I just write down everything the prof puts on the board, in the desperate hope that I'll understand it when I go over it later. The last time I had to do that was in quantum, and then I had the book to help me. Now, our "book" for the semester is a 20-page handout that basically just shows figures and equations. I am in such deep doo-doo.

The bright side is, stat mech will help put Biochem in perspective. It's supposed to be this really tough class, but so far Yevbodnik(sp?) hasn't actually taught much of anything. He spent the first 2 lectures and most of the third, telling us what he's going to teach us. He'd throw in a few random examples, so I'd write that stuff down. But honestly, that man needs to make me feel like I need to show up, or he'll lose me forever. Especially when I'm coming right from a class that's an actual challenge.

Time to be productive.

Dear Journal, today was my second day of classes! It was so exciting. Let me tell you about them!

Chem 533: Statistical Mechanics, Thermodynamics, and Chemical Kinetics

Oh dear. That's really all I can say about it. I don't think the material will be beyond me. But still...it's The Revenge of Pchem! And it's a 4-person class, so hello, awkward. The professor is a postdoc named Alex who works in the Emerson center. It's his first time teaching ever, so things could get hairy. But his cubicle is really close to my workspace, so office hours will be convenient.

Oh, and one other thing. The final for this class is scheduled for December 21. That's right, my 21st birthday will be rockin' with the Thermodynamics final.

Chem 301/Bio 301: Biochemistry I

The joyous reunion of me and Kathleen, after not seeing each other since December. And that's all I remember about it, because I definitely didn't pay attention to the professors' spiels. Yeah, there's two profs for this class. Yevbovdneswwtiuawtshjewrwrogrwrelhowhgoneronik (a bio guy), and Gallivan (with whom I played softball over the summer). The class is huge and full of overachieving pre-med freaks. Man, I'm glad I'm not one of those. Again, not worried that the material will be over my head, just a bit freaked about the quantity. But it'll be okay.

Throw in another round of Chem 499R (Independent Research), and...twenty credit hours?? I thought I was never going to do that again!! I'm insane.

Today was the first day of classes of my senior year!

French 391S: Francophone Studies (Seminar)

I did not prepare myself at all for this class. Mme Loichot came in speaking French, and I was actually surprised. Whoops. I took a class with Mme Loichot sophomore year, and she gets bonus points for not only remembering my name, but the fact that I'm from Baton Rouge.

Speaking of which, I kept getting yelled at today. From across the quad, across the street, wherever: "LAKEDRA, HOW'S YOUR FAMILY??" I greatly appreciated the concern. Thinking about it even made my eyes well up a little in my next class...

Art History 340: Gothic Art and Architecture

Yeah, I'm keeping this class. The prof, Dr. Pastan, is really passionate about the subject matter and I just love that. Besides that, there's the concentration on medieval France, and I'm all about that. It's funny because, having never taken European History in high school, I don't know that much about any other period in any other country. But I'm down with the medieval France.

That's all I've got for today. T/Th should be pretty fun.

Thinking about my French paper doesn't bring me joy, but I've gotta do it. I definitely got an 88 on grammar, 85 on content. Or maybe the other way around. Either way, such grades are entirely unacceptable for a 300-level French class. It's French, for crying out loud.

I totally called this. Doesn't make me feel any better about my grade, but it's true. When people were wondering how easy a grader McCullough would be, I said, "She seems like the kind of teacher who's really laid back and easy going in class, and then randomly sticks it to you on papers." Doesn't really say much of substance during class, but expects us all to be on the same interpretive level as she is. Never mind that she's a grad student, and some of us are in our first French literature class, ever. We should be able to instantly make connections akin to the "snow = rhetorical structure of society" one. Boo.

Actually, getting this out did bring me joy. I'm gonna friends-lock it, because I just asked the woman for an extension. The last thing I need is her stumbling upon this entry.

So, registration and stuff for seniors closes tomorrow. Good thing I decided to look into that today. I went ahead and submitted my course requests, but I know for a fact this will change. I definitely don't plan on taking 20 credit hours. Been there, done that, wanted to end my life. The final schedule will have to wait until the Director of Graduate Studies gets back to me about the Masters thing. Which will hopefully be at some point before August. Anyway, the classes I picked are:

Biochemistry I
Thermodynamics II
Quantum Chemistry II
Francophone Studies
Revolutionary France

Should be a good time.

I've missed a couple of days. Because I've been going to sleep early, and I'm liking it! Now, the other component of this plan is waking up early, so I can do the stuff I'd normally be getting done around 2 or 3 am. I'm not quite there yet. But almost!

Yesterday was very, very long, and I didn't even have TAR to look forward to. So that sucked. I also don't like getting all sweaty and gross in PE, and having to stay gross until I'm done for the day. Yesterday, that was 9:45. I might have to investigate the shower situation in the locker room.

I managed to make it through all of Analytical without falling asleep! This enabled me to realize that I'm thirteen chapters behind, having never opened my book. The concepts he lectures on are quite easy. The homework assignments are quite impossible (but pass/fail!). He said the test won't have long, super-involved problems like the homework, but I'm not quite sure what to expect.

I got an email verifying that my SURE application was received and was complete. I'll find out April 15, at the latest.

Kindt group meeting SUCKED. It started late, and was far too long. Crazy grad students, who have, literally, nothing else to do in life. It's only supposed to last an hour and a half, but they prepare like, three hours of presentation, and then they want to have a discussion about it. And I want to die.

Quiz bowl was pretty fun. I was asked if I'm going to play next year. This year I've taken off has been grand, and the lack of tournaments has done nothing but help my volunteer time. But we'll see.

I took this humor quiz once before, but I can't remember if I posted it or not. So here it is:

Sunny/Dark: 8/10
drY/Gross: 3/10
Traditional/Offbeat: 5/10
Active/Passive: 9/10


You are a DYT--Dark Dry Traditional. This makes you a Cynic.

You're a realist. You'll take the piss out of anything, and do it with style and a skinny gray tie. You find humor in the mundane. When the mundane is thousands of working class families watching their retirement savings get snarfed by unpunished white collar bandits, that REALLY gets the larfs.

You bring humor with you, and can flip over any situation to find the tender funny underbelly.

Incidentally, you're better equipped than anyone else to shake off the bad things happen to you. Mysterious lump? You've seen scarier lumps in your garlic cheesey grits. It seems like nothing makes you truly happy, but nothing really upsets you, either.

Your comic sensibility was more in tune with the eighties. But cross your fingers -- another coupla years of Bush and maybe we'll work up a nice Reagan-era national bitterness again. A sardonic orange cat will once again rule the newsprint, and Springsteen'll write more righteous Jersey retro-cock-rock anthems for the progressive pols of 2024 to cold gank. What's past is prologue!

You might like David Letterman, or maybe stay up to see if Conan has another "Pierre Bernard's Recliner of Rage."

Of the 14379 people who have taken this quiz, 10.5 % are this type.

Your Active humor score of 9/10 means you are a comic house on fire. You are Def Comedy Jam (for the first five minutes, before it becomes repetitive and degrading). You are a library of witty rejoinders, in-jokes, ad-libs and meatballs. Yeah, I said meatballs. They're underrated.

The trick for you is to ease yourself into a situation, since you have the capacity to dominate. If you're socially well-adjusted, you're awesome. If you're kind of nervous and twitchy like Daniel Radcliff in the Prisoner of Azkaban special features, then there can be trouble.

First things first: I want to have Shohreh Aghadashloo's babies. The woman is AMAZING. Am I talking about her Oscar-nominated performance in the critically acclaimed House of Sand and Fog? Of course not! I don't watch movies. I'm definitely talking about tonight's ep of 24. Soooooo good. She had one scene, and rocked it, hard. That was the first time I ever cried for one of 24's baddies. The beginning of the ep was really good, too. Some aspects of the show have definitely declined over the years (another mole??). Yet they still bring the action scenes better than any television show has a right to.

Hmm, what can I talk about to prove that my life doesn't revolve around TV? School? Okay then.
In my first class, we did some partnered stretches, so I had a complete stranger all up in my personal space. In my second class, the obnoxious grad student kept asking stupid questions, maybe in the hopes of sounding smarter than the puny undergrads? Oh, and when I say he kept asking stupid questions, I mean he kept asking the same stupid question over and over, in a different way. Boooo. And then, two new girls walked into the class (they just added it to their schedules). Apparently, McCullough hates these girls. She said, "Are you really in this class, or is this a threat?" And then, when they said yes, "Did I do something wrong in a past life??" Completely serious, not a hint of humor. Like, welcome to the class, bitches.

Then I spent a couple of hours in the lab, and a couple of hours studying orgo. That was a rollicking good time. I ate after that, and then went to fellowship chapter. While there, I realized that I've never really known exactly how microwaves work. And then...I came back here, studied some more orgo, and watched the aforementioned episode of 24. Then I studied more orgo. Such is life. My life, at least.

Today's classes.

PE 184: Team Handball

Apparently, this class is very popular. Who knew? People kept coming in to see if they could be overloaded. Zan's in the class, and also Adam R. I think I'm going to be the only girl. I'm not sure, because a lot of people who are in the class didn't actually show up. They were incapable of reading the big ol' signs that said where each class was meeting. Did I mention that the instructor told us to call him Coach D? 'Cuz he did. He's also the coach of the US National Team. In spite of this, I don't think this class'll be too intense.

Chem 260: Analytical Chemistry

Ah, chem260. This class is full of people I don't know, with the exception of this girl who was in Inorganic with me. The prof, Dr. Philen, looks almost exactly like the scientist guy from "Fraggle Rock." I'm not too sure how the tests are going to go. But the homework is pass/fail, y'all. Turn it in, get 100%! Whoooo!

And finally...

Chem 499R: Independent Research

This class doesn't really have a meeting time. But I think it's going to be my most labor-intensive class. Go go, equilibrium polymers! Whoo!

Speaking of research, time is running out on applications for summer programs. Do I want to stay here and do research on a SURE grant? Do I want to work for Dr. H-P again? Or for Dr. Cavalier, my mom's neurologist? Or apply for some other internship? What if I fail the MCAT? I'd need to spend the summer preparing for the August test. What to do, what to do?

Any thoughts I may have entertained about having a lot of free time this semester have flown. Right out the window. Bye bye, free time. It's not the classes, it's the other stuff. Like, am I really going to be coordinator of two service projects? Without a car? Cripes.

Also: If APhiO can be free of stupid politics this semester, I will be a happy, happy person.

Enough about that. My MWF classes are...

PE 194: Stress Reduction and Flexibility

This should be...something. The instructor, Peck, has the most placid voice I've ever heard. The man's a walking cure for insomnia. It's a good thing he found the right calling, being prof for the one class in which students are encouraged to sleep. Imagine if he'd decided to be a physics teacher.

French 331: Studies in the Early Period

Medieval and Renaissance French lit. The prof, McCullough, seems really nice. And she's pretty young. And English is her native language. I've been taking French since I was 6, I've never had a teacher who wasn't a native speaker. I don't think it'll make a difference or anything; it was just something I noticed.

Also cool: the first two works we're studying? Tristan et Iseut, both the version by Béroul and the one by Thomas, and Lancelot, or the Knight of the Cart, by Chrétien de Troyes. Familiar? Yeah, those were definitely works we read in my English class last semester. I actually wrote a paper comparing Béroul's and Thomas' versions. And I used a book that was written in French as a secondary resource for that paper. (I was desperate.) So it's like everything has come full circle.

So much for that supreme test of willpower; the DVDs didn't get shipped in from L.A. Or something. Looks like I'll be waiting until January 9th, just like everybody else. I went straight to the chem library, getting there a little after two. I worked on MoMoSim until the library closed at six, and I was told to leave. I ran my simulations fine, but the rest of this project is not going to be as easy as I thought. I've got this script to find mean square displacement, but the way Kindt wrote it, it only works for a system of water molecules. Which doesn't help me much, since I've got to make it work for sodium and potassium ions. If libraries didn't have such ridiculous hours on Friday, I probably could've figured it out. I'd already figured out how to extract only the coordinates of the ions from my data files, so I was pretty proud of that. I know Dr. Kindt doesn't come in on Saturdays, so I'll probably be getting his help on Sunday.

Alex's sister Lindsay is here for a visit. I'd never met her before...she and Alex are SO much alike, in looks and mannerism. For the first ten minutes or so, I was just a bit overwhelmed at the sudden presence of two Alexes. I got better though, and was soon my normal, charming self. Hehe. We went to Los Loros for some foodness. The title quote is from Lindsay, when her Fajitas Flameando arived in a three-foot plume of fire. "Flameando" might not be the actual word from the menu...I just remember that the rough translation is "You don't really need your eyebrows."

In other news, my paper sucks. Not as bad as it did at first; my points are actually in a logical order. The problem is, I had ten pages of rough material, and of course my refinements are only making it shorter. When the deadline's close enough, I know I'll just sack up and do the best I can, but for now it's bothersome.