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ship_go_boomSo y'all are probably so bored of me ignoring the ol' Flist and popping up every other month to bitch/whine/freak out about homework, right? 'Cause I sure am. Bet you want to hear something fannish out of me for once, right? 'Course you do.
Well, you're just going to have to wait! I have gloating to do! (Don't worry, I have fannish musings for later in this broadcast. ;) )
Fair warning, I think I must have been in blog withdrawal or something, it took me a horribly long time to get to the point.
You know that presentation I was freaking out about the last two real posts? All was cool.
Despite the campus-wide emails pimping the event, no one not directly involved in the class showed up (except for one, but her daughter was in the class, so I'm not sure she counts). In fact, not even the entire class showed up... two of the absentees I kind of expected not to show, but the other one was kind of surprising - he seemed really together.
Anywho, that meant there were a grand total of twelve people there (counting me and the three professors) for the presentation. Some friends who had night classes swung by beforehand, as did the Sociology prof, who checked out the posters and chatted about American Idol for a bit (she's the one that started me on that evil, addictive show). The professors brought pizza (pepper & onion, sausage & mushroom, pepperoni, and cheese. I had one of each; the sausage & mushroom was the best) and lots of soda (Sunkist: yellow five, caffiene, and a delightful orangey flavor! Woohoo!), and we hung around and bullshitted for a while before the speechy part.
The reason we had time for pizza and BS is because we all expected to be classically last-minute students who didn't have their poster presentations finished yet, so declared that set-up should start at 4:30, figuring two and a half hours would be just enough time to get ready. Much to our surprise, everyone's poster was ready to go (except for mine, which needed some last-minute gluesticking, but I showed up 20 minutes early), so hanging ensued.
At about 6:30 the professor shooed us out of the lecture hall (yes, this tiny event was held in the biggest room on campus), so they could grade the posters.
I doubt that my poster was the most informative of the bunch, but consensus was that it was the prettiest (cool enough that I'm keeping it). Which is good, because I stayed up until 10:30 the night before working on it... not so bad, in and of itself, but as it's me I couldn't get to sleep after that and ended up YouTubing (I think... unless that was when I watched Wilby Wonderful - great movie btw - I'm not sure. I was very tired) until past midnight. I should point out that on school days my alarm clock goes beepy at 5:30.
So yeah. I was really tired, and hadn't finished outlining my speech. I worked through lunch, and still wasn't quite finished. Fortunately, my English professor just so happened to be one of the INT 290 profs, so she let me work on the speech during her class (it was a workshop day anyways, I was just workshopping the wrong thing). I finished five minutes after the class did, then wandered over to Western Civ and pretty much slept through it. After I got copies of my outline printed out I went and napped in my car for a half-hour. It was very refreshing.
I got to speak next-to-last, so I had the vaguely sadistic confidence boost of watching the two who had the most interesting subjects derail themselves for lack of structure (they answered questions from the audience well, so came out with pretty good grades anyhow). I was nervous going up to speak, but fortunately, my academic anxiety was great enough that I had my breakdown a few days in advance, and so remained remarkably calm on the night. That said, my main objective of the night was to keep my stutter under some semblance of control - it was a bit of a rough start, but I succeeded by repeating the inner mantra of "I look awesome, I can damn well sound awesome too," (neat black slacks & dress shirt + gray suit jacket, red & black tie, stiletto heels + most of my usual jewelry = very rockstar-turned-academic looking, and just restrictive enough to keep me from going into defensive slouch mode). I thought it went well, but that it ended up kind of disjointed and up in the air.
Anywho, that meant there were a grand total of twelve people there (counting me and the three professors) for the presentation. Some friends who had night classes swung by beforehand, as did the Sociology prof, who checked out the posters and chatted about American Idol for a bit (she's the one that started me on that evil, addictive show). The professors brought pizza (pepper & onion, sausage & mushroom, pepperoni, and cheese. I had one of each; the sausage & mushroom was the best) and lots of soda (Sunkist: yellow five, caffiene, and a delightful orangey flavor! Woohoo!), and we hung around and bullshitted for a while before the speechy part.
The reason we had time for pizza and BS is because we all expected to be classically last-minute students who didn't have their poster presentations finished yet, so declared that set-up should start at 4:30, figuring two and a half hours would be just enough time to get ready. Much to our surprise, everyone's poster was ready to go (except for mine, which needed some last-minute gluesticking, but I showed up 20 minutes early), so hanging ensued.
At about 6:30 the professor shooed us out of the lecture hall (yes, this tiny event was held in the biggest room on campus), so they could grade the posters.
I doubt that my poster was the most informative of the bunch, but consensus was that it was the prettiest (cool enough that I'm keeping it). Which is good, because I stayed up until 10:30 the night before working on it... not so bad, in and of itself, but as it's me I couldn't get to sleep after that and ended up YouTubing (I think... unless that was when I watched Wilby Wonderful - great movie btw - I'm not sure. I was very tired) until past midnight. I should point out that on school days my alarm clock goes beepy at 5:30.
So yeah. I was really tired, and hadn't finished outlining my speech. I worked through lunch, and still wasn't quite finished. Fortunately, my English professor just so happened to be one of the INT 290 profs, so she let me work on the speech during her class (it was a workshop day anyways, I was just workshopping the wrong thing). I finished five minutes after the class did, then wandered over to Western Civ and pretty much slept through it. After I got copies of my outline printed out I went and napped in my car for a half-hour. It was very refreshing.
I got to speak next-to-last, so I had the vaguely sadistic confidence boost of watching the two who had the most interesting subjects derail themselves for lack of structure (they answered questions from the audience well, so came out with pretty good grades anyhow). I was nervous going up to speak, but fortunately, my academic anxiety was great enough that I had my breakdown a few days in advance, and so remained remarkably calm on the night. That said, my main objective of the night was to keep my stutter under some semblance of control - it was a bit of a rough start, but I succeeded by repeating the inner mantra of "I look awesome, I can damn well sound awesome too," (neat black slacks & dress shirt + gray suit jacket, red & black tie, stiletto heels + most of my usual jewelry = very rockstar-turned-academic looking, and just restrictive enough to keep me from going into defensive slouch mode). I thought it went well, but that it ended up kind of disjointed and up in the air.
The grades for were emailed out yesterday.
Guess who got an A? ::points at self with thumbs:: Oh yeah. Did I tell you I was awesome, or did I tell you I was awesome? ;)
I wouldn't normally be quite so smug about getting a good grade, especially on a 1-credit class, but this semester has been a frakking nightmare, so I wouldn't have been totally surprised if I hadn't been able to pull myself together in time for finals, and blown my GPA all to Hell as a result. Next time class registration rolls around, somebody please remind me that I have the reading speed of a narcoleptic snail and the writing speed to match, and therefore should NOT be taking ten credits worth of reading/research-heavy, paper/project-grade only classes? Especially not if I'm planning on taking six MORE credits of other classes? 'Cause that's what I did this semester, and the end result was me 1) dropping Psychology 3/4's of the way through (ironically, I had an A in and liked the prof, I just needed the time to work on my other classes); and 2) taking incompletes on both of my History classes (which I'll get to work on finishing next week. The rest of my finals were yesterday, and dammit, I will be taking a few days off!)
In all honesty, it wasn't just the course work that made this semester difficult, but most the other stuff turned out pretty cool. A quick overview:
Got my transfer application in to Eau Claire. Not so bad, but getting transcripts sent to the right places is a pain in the ass.
Noticed that was having trouble reading the far side of the blackboard in 8am Psychology (I'm a geek row sitter, so a distance of about 20 feet). Realized that it wasn't just the prof's handwriting when I noticed that the "Automatic Door" sign right next to the far side of the blackboard was kind of wobbly, as were any road signs that I encountered. Turns out I'm mildly nearsighted. The eye doctor was slightly worried because I only started noticing a couple months before I had my eyes checked, which is odd for a 21-year-old (it's not astigmatism - if it had been, I'd have been right on schedule for my family). But once I got my glasses, I realized that my eyes had been going for years. Here I thought the reason the world looked so much less shiny and cool now was just just nostalgia playing tricks on me. Wrong! I wasn't getting disillusioned at an early age, I just couldn't see! :) (I quite like my glasses, too. They make me look, as my dad put it, "10% smarter, and 50% more studious!" And my eyes are good enough, I don't have to wear them around the house - I'm even legal to drive without them still.)
Finished the other vital part of transferring to Eau Claire: getting an apartment! I got a really nice one-bedroom about a mile from campus (which is good, 'cause I won't have a car). $460 a month, all utilities plus basic cable and wireless internet included in the price. It's a two story, with kitchen, bath, and living room downstairs, and a funky spiral staircase leading to the bedroom upstairs. Huge windows on both levels, big closet upstairs (and a bigger one downstairs, but they're going to knock it out and expand the kitchen into the extra five feet before I move in in August). It even comes complete with an eccentric long-term tenant (15 years) across the hall... haven't met him yet, but he keeps Arthur Rackham illustrations & photocopies of old Latin title pages taped to his door, so I'll go out on a limb and say he's cool. For bonus points, I'm two blocks away from my apartment manager's office, one block away from a friend who's transferring the time as I am, a mile or so from the public library & the asian grocery, and from the upstairs window I can see the place my parents lived when they were at Eau Claire and I was little baby. :)
Noticed that was having trouble reading the far side of the blackboard in 8am Psychology (I'm a geek row sitter, so a distance of about 20 feet). Realized that it wasn't just the prof's handwriting when I noticed that the "Automatic Door" sign right next to the far side of the blackboard was kind of wobbly, as were any road signs that I encountered. Turns out I'm mildly nearsighted. The eye doctor was slightly worried because I only started noticing a couple months before I had my eyes checked, which is odd for a 21-year-old (it's not astigmatism - if it had been, I'd have been right on schedule for my family). But once I got my glasses, I realized that my eyes had been going for years. Here I thought the reason the world looked so much less shiny and cool now was just just nostalgia playing tricks on me. Wrong! I wasn't getting disillusioned at an early age, I just couldn't see! :) (I quite like my glasses, too. They make me look, as my dad put it, "10% smarter, and 50% more studious!" And my eyes are good enough, I don't have to wear them around the house - I'm even legal to drive without them still.)
Finished the other vital part of transferring to Eau Claire: getting an apartment! I got a really nice one-bedroom about a mile from campus (which is good, 'cause I won't have a car). $460 a month, all utilities plus basic cable and wireless internet included in the price. It's a two story, with kitchen, bath, and living room downstairs, and a funky spiral staircase leading to the bedroom upstairs. Huge windows on both levels, big closet upstairs (and a bigger one downstairs, but they're going to knock it out and expand the kitchen into the extra five feet before I move in in August). It even comes complete with an eccentric long-term tenant (15 years) across the hall... haven't met him yet, but he keeps Arthur Rackham illustrations & photocopies of old Latin title pages taped to his door, so I'll go out on a limb and say he's cool. For bonus points, I'm two blocks away from my apartment manager's office, one block away from a friend who's transferring the time as I am, a mile or so from the public library & the asian grocery, and from the upstairs window I can see the place my parents lived when they were at Eau Claire and I was little baby. :)
Err... you know, other than that and maybe some random amusements with friends & clubs, nothing in particular happened to me over the last few months. And yet I still need a brain nap.
And finally something fannish!
So, even though it had been over a year since I'd seen an episode (Razor doesn't quite count), I'm really loving the new season of Battlestar Galactica (actually, I've been enjoying the new episodes of just about every show I've been watching - House, Bones, New Amsterdam American Idol, Boston Legal eta: [Smallville, Supernatural... anything else I forgot the first time?] - has tv gotten better, or are my standards just getting lower?). There have been some elements that aren't completely enthralling, but I love that we've been getting steadily further into the conflict among the Cylon models, the way the Watchtower Four revelation has been affecting said four's actions... it's just all so cool! I've even gotten into the Join the Fight web-thingamajig that SciFi.com has set up (btw, if you're interested in joining that but haven't, tell me. I get points for recruiting people :) ). But the best part about the new episodes? More Leoben.
Tell me, how is it that Leoben has been my favorite Cylon since the miniseries, and yet it's taken me three years to realize that the actor who plays him is a total hottie? A total hottie who just so happened to have played the legendary RayK on Due South? I do not understand how my brain missed this. However, I'm making up for lost time by attempting to watch everything that Callum Keith Rennie has ever been in (I need to find more Twitch City. Damn, what a weird show). Note the Wilby Wonderful mention above ^ . The parental units and I have started watching Due South (starting from the beginning - still in the Vecchio days) and are quite enjoying it.
My ever-present fondness for punk is hitting its usual summer upswing and then some, approaching levels that promise to bring early deafness. Given my latest actorly obsession, it should be no surprise that I have a new favorite movie. I couldn't sleep on Thursday night, so instead of tossing and turning all night, I decided to peruse the interwebs for things to watch... and found Hard Core Logo. I think I managed to make the fastest canon-to-fandom transition in the history of ever - something like fifteen hours between first contact and hitting the![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
crack_van recs. I'll probably get tired of fic fairly quickly, just because the canon's limited enough (at least in comparison to any sort of series) that the stories all have pretty similar plot lines, but until then I'm enjoying my scruffy, disreputable new fandom.
Tell me, how is it that Leoben has been my favorite Cylon since the miniseries, and yet it's taken me three years to realize that the actor who plays him is a total hottie? A total hottie who just so happened to have played the legendary RayK on Due South? I do not understand how my brain missed this. However, I'm making up for lost time by attempting to watch everything that Callum Keith Rennie has ever been in (I need to find more Twitch City. Damn, what a weird show). Note the Wilby Wonderful mention above ^ . The parental units and I have started watching Due South (starting from the beginning - still in the Vecchio days) and are quite enjoying it.
My ever-present fondness for punk is hitting its usual summer upswing and then some, approaching levels that promise to bring early deafness. Given my latest actorly obsession, it should be no surprise that I have a new favorite movie. I couldn't sleep on Thursday night, so instead of tossing and turning all night, I decided to peruse the interwebs for things to watch... and found Hard Core Logo. I think I managed to make the fastest canon-to-fandom transition in the history of ever - something like fifteen hours between first contact and hitting the
crack_van recs. I'll probably get tired of fic fairly quickly, just because the canon's limited enough (at least in comparison to any sort of series) that the stories all have pretty similar plot lines, but until then I'm enjoying my scruffy, disreputable new fandom.And to close, I'm finally checking my Flist. Skip=900, baby! May 6th is as far as I can go, so drop a comment if there's anything earlier you want me to see. My hope is to, over the next few days, weed down the non-essentials enough so in the future when I have masses of homework I can still check up on y'all without getting procrastination guilt.
