Hooray I’m alive!

Don’t fret, all ye five people who read this blog, for I have just not been in a writing mood lately. So now I shall relate the important happenings of the last week (or two…) in reverse-random-sequential order [in reverse order to what it would be if I had just done them randomly]!

I have completed two finals, first in math [this one was graded the day after we took the test, and my grade for the whole course was a 3.8 :D] and this morning in physics [which I think I did well on, but last time I thought that, I got a 78% so I am skeptical. HOWEVER, average grade on exams has been around 65%…my professor HEAVILY curves grades.] Today at 2:30 is my logic final, which I am studying for by playing minesweeper.

Last week the physics theory that I had been working on finally produced some results, and aligned correctly with the currently accepted theory. Which indicates that my idea works with classical physics, and I know it works with relativity, and I have an idea of how to make it work for quantum mechanics but that would require fancier math tools than I currently have in my Utility Belt of Nerdiness so it will have to wait. My professor is currently perusing the wee little paper I wrote up on it, but I won’t see her again until winter quarter so I will also have to wait for her to tell me what I did wrong [I am extremely suspicious of my work. Ssh.]

Other things…I’m housesitting for my dad while he’s gone to Arizona visiting his lady friend [SIGH] but I will visit my madre and have a couple friends over at various times to keep me company so that I don’t start talking to the animals like a certain other person I could mention [points in the general direction of where my mom is right now].

Oh, also my sister’s stupid car broke down in the middle of Bellevue Way right outside the Bellevue Square Mall in Christmas season traffic, so we got to push it off the road where it took up half of the exit lane from a parking lot while we waited for a tow truck [yes, that was all one sentence, but I don’t have to subscribe to the stupid Six Traits writing system anymore. Go away]. There wasn’t enough room in the truck for all of us, so my brother and sister went home with Kelly and I rode with the tow driver so he could take the car home. It was cold. But the tow truck driver was very nice [very, very Santa-like] so that was fun.

UMMMMM oh, so regarding the little outburst of several posts ago, I should warn you that I get mad when I can’t figure something out. Which isn’t to say I get mad when something takes a long time to figure out, because those problems are usually the most fun, but I mean like I can’t even picture the situation in my brain let alone smack some numbers together and drawing blanks like that frustrates me. So if that ever happens again just roll your eyes and ignore everything I say because I don’t intend to belittle a particular field of study, I’m just taking out my frustration with myself on the stuff I don’t understand. I’m silly that way.

RIGHTO, I believe I have some minesweeper to study. Yay!

Eccentricity pays off!

Hooray for results! And this time my affinity for eccentric behavior did not land me in pizza or in a light pole!

Anyway. I was walking back to the dorm, taking a shortcut between two buildings. The shortcut constituted a paved walkway, with a kind of strip of grass to the right and raised about a foot from the pavement. Because I feel like illustrating this with my amazing ASCII skills:

          _ ,,,,,,,
         | |#######    [cross section]
_________| |#######

# = dirt
, = grass

_
| | = concrete curb thing
| |

_ = pavement

Right. Now I can get on with my story.

So because I am, as we all know, cultivating a wide range of eccentricities in order to provide for a robust and varied future, I decided to hop up on the curb thing separating pavement from grass and walk on that (I assume all of my readers have experienced this at some point). The eccentricity was turned up to a maximum in that I also wore my most severe thoughtful countenance, going for the classic “absentminded professor who somehow conveys himself across campus by navigating a series of cerebellum-taunting obstacles, despite the fact that he is paying no attention to where he is going” type of look that has been popularized in a wide variety of cartoons, etc.

That was a lot of important-sounding words! Wow. XD

IN ANY CASE. While I was doing this, I noticed somebody walking toward me. She was one of those old ladies that everyone wishes their grandma was like…something about the way she carried herself suggested that she had seen it all, done it all, learned the requisite life lessons, and had now retired to baking cookies and telling her grandchildren stories of her grand adventures.

I think I’m in a poetic mood today. Odd.

RIGHT. When I glanced at her as she passed she was looking at me with…something between amusement and delight, which caught me off guard because I would have expected something like “You hooligans and your PCPs…making you do crazy things…like…zzz…” but instead this random person who I had never seen before saw STRAIGHT THROUGH ME and was thoroughly amused by my antics. I made her day, and that made my day, and then I went on to making my mom’s day by telling her I’d be coming home for the weekend. Yay!

I get the feeling that she was having a “that reminds me of me” moment, because after all it takes an absentminded eccentric to know an absentminded eccentric from a creepy sociopath.

I was also amused to think of a scenario in which I could have instead disturbed and offended her (and pretty much anyone else who happened to look that way >.>): rather than just imagining me walking on the curb, dear readers, picture this:

You are walking along to your car from the most recent lecture you gave (because you are a professor. Stay with me.) when, from the direction of the parking lot, you hear what could only be interpreted as a war cry. Assuming that this is just a college student being…a college student, you continue on your way.

Suddenly from around the corner jumps a student, late teens, glasses askew, medium-length brown hair managing to stand in defiance of all laws of gravity, wearing pants on his head, a cape, and a kilt. And swinging a kitten around by the tail.

That is what we in the eccentricity business call “dangerously unstable” and we try to distance ourselves from that particular path as much as is possible without actually being normal. In case the implications weren’t clear, this was told from the perspective of the lady who passed me and the crazy student was, in fact, me (no I do not own, nor do I plan on owning, a kilt).

At the risk of sounding pretentious, eccentricity really is somewhat of an art form – trying to get as close to kitten-swinging loony as possible without actually causing harm to a kitten is something we strive for.

Righto…I’m going to find something to do before lab. Forthward!

PS – today’s advice for a more eccentric life: use the term “kitten-swinging loony” in casual conversation. I dare you.

Apologies...

So yes. I looked at my post from Monday and some things need to be noted.

Firstly, I didn't mean to belittle engineers...I probably should have mentioned that since I'm not actually studying engineering the education I get in stuff that applies there is extremely minimal. It came off like I thought that engineers are just physicists who didn't apply themselves, and I didn't mean it that way at all. Engineering is an entire degree (not to mention all of the branches of engineering that have their own degrees too) and the amount of it I study makes up one week of one term; so the things we apply it to are extremely simplified to compensate for the fact that we don't spend time on it. My frustration was from the fact that I couldn't get the extremely simplified things...so yeah.

In other news, today was yet another good day for whatever mischievous demon is stalking me. On the walk to class in the morning, the sun shines right into my eyes, so usually I just keep my face down. Today, however, this proved unwise as I was not able to see that my path diverted into a light pole. The girl (always, always) who was standing next to it waiting for the light to turn was especially amused when I cursed "TESTICLES!" and proceeded to pretend nothing had happened.

Then I got to stand there next to her waiting for the light to change.  Yup, it was awesome.

Righto, that's all I've got for now because I made a cappuccino with french vanilla coffee creamer and it is calling to me :D