After years of not working my laptop is either now recognizing the battery or the battery is working again. Seriously, it's been probably three years since I could start my computer without it being plugged in. Granted I only have three minutes of battery time, but still last week it wasn't even recognizing the power cord.
It is a simple question. All to often I don't ask myself this simple question and end up doing things that shouldn't be done. For instance, why have I spent two days writing a paper that I can get an A on after two hours of writing? I've proven the two hour theory and, yet, I have wasted my weekend on this very paper.
I have not been writing the paper that I have not guaranteed myself an A on. Why? Because this, the harder of the two papers, isn't really graded it's just really critically read.
Why do I waste so much time playing Tetris? I can even venture a guess on that one.
Why, when at the Of Montreal last night did I not move away from the speakers when I could feel my jacket vibrating with the sound? Because dancing on stage left is fun!
Why am I writing a blog post when I should be writing? Why not.
Tuesday we leave for Chicago. I haven't been planning what clothes I'm going to pack, I've been planning what homework to take. Boo, I hate homework. Why do I have to go on this trip?
I was alerted to the fact that my last post was fairly negative. I suppose it was, but in reality this week has been really great. There were exclaimation points! And positive comments on returned work. There was also the tough guy riding a loud Harley playing Paula Abdul. Leah had me over for dinner two nights in a row. I didn't miss my horticulture walk even though I was late to class. My new friend, Jason, and I went and saw Wordplay as well as, The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players, who were wonderful.
...one of them is graduate school, another is my toaster.
Toaster. Why must you break on the morning I have to get up early to write a paper due at 9:30? I wanted some pancakes and the best way to reheat them is you. When did you turn against me? Because of you I only half-way wrote my paper and then, during class my stomach growled. Loudly. Due to a rather unfortunate circumstances I ended up sitting right next to the teacher, and she heard every growl and rumble. I hate you toaster.
I hate my seminar. I hate writing the papers for it and the in class discussions are murderous. Each day class is held, I dream about dropping. Why don't I? Because I know this is the class I'll learn the most from. But in the meantime, here I am playing the role of the village racist or, on my good days, village idiot. I hate you writing and thinking about difficult subjects.
I hate trees. Actually, I hate my horticulture class. It deals with woody ornamentals' identification; the class is affectionately nicknamed "woodies." Up until this semester I've enjoyed an ignorant love affair with woodie ornamentals most of my life, but now I'm forced to hate them. Friday, when I was riding the bus home I caught myself gazing out the window. This behavior isn't unusual, but instead of the usual mild hum running through my head, I caught myself thinking, "Oh that's Acer x freemanii "Armstrong." No wait. "Armstrong" or "Autum Blaze", it's hard to tell the length and intensity of color of those petioles." I was leaning forward, bumping my head on the window trying to determine these characteristics. I hate you horticulture you make me look like a fool on the bus.
I've been busy. Rather unfortunately, I thought taking 18 hrs. my first semester back to school wouldn't be a big deal. There are some oddities to my situation. I am the only first year grad student entering with advanced standing. This means that I'm only in two classes with any of the other first years. Instead, I got to jump into the junior studio with grad students who have been here a year already. They've been very nice and after the initial worry, I'm glad I'm in with this group rather the the other first years, but that aside. There is a class called "Site Engineering," and it's just that. Everyone else has had a prerequisite class that introduces them to the concepts of site grading, drawing contours, calculating slope, and in general everything relating to site that I skimmed over in architecture school.
Due to my advanced standing, the department thinks I can handle this. To say the least, it's been hard. Which meant I spent a Friday morning with the professor going over the finer points of site grading so I could do the project that was coming due. Aside from embarassing myself by smelling like rotting tomatoes and having my stomach growl through the entire meeting my comments were, well, less than stellar. The professor would say something like this:
"So you take this and this and blah blah blah and you get this."
"Um, so what did you do to get that number?"
"I added these two numbers in my head. I don't like pushing calcualtor buttons."
"Oh. Of course. You added those two numbers in your head"...just like what I can't do.
But I met with my advisor today. I'm making an effort to get to know my professors, something I didn't really try for in my undergrad days. She is very nice. When she first met me she game me a hug and said she was really glad I decided to come here. And really, how can you not want to talk to a person like that?
I used to not like it much here, and there are times when I still suffer from chooser's remorse, but overall I'm enjoying myself. There are more stories, like when I couldn't collect my thoughts in a class called "Sugar and Slaves" and came across as a racist, or the time I was rolling my eyes in class and I'm pretty sure the teacher saw me. Yeah, that's the new image I'm projecting.
