An Evil Internet Connection

I never emailed this one guy telling him which section of math 186 I wanted so he could give me an override. So now I have to go to their office in person and request it. Fiddlesticks... or as they say in German, "Verflixt!"

You would all be so proud of me. I finished my German homework in a timely manner. I read Aristophanes' The Acharnians and I'm going to read Lysistrata. It's actually quite funny for old Greek literature. I'm going to work on calc tonight too. I'm just so very productive today. And look! I'm even getting a blog post in.

To quote Aristophanes: "Now let's be clear about this: I hate the Spartans as much as any man here. I hope Poseidon sends an earthquake from his home on Mount Taenarum and brings all their houses to the ground." Spoken like a true Wolverine.

The SciFi channel's SciFi commercial things are fun.

I'm currently annoyed because I was thinking about taking Bio 222 (From Message to Mind: An Introduction To Neurobiology) but all the dumb upperclassmen took it. THEN, I decided to do Physics 125 but the lab I wanted was already closed. So now I don't know what I'm going to do. Schisse.

please excuse me while I roll my eyes across the floor

"It's totter, not tipsy." ...another highly productive meeting with my German group, which included 10 minutes that were completely devoted to the drawing of 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 pointed stars.

Today was the first time that I've seen it snow in Ann Arbor. It started snowing around 2-ish and continued into the evening. I love it. At one point, the flakes were big and floaty.

In Music Theory, we listened to music that people brought in. The first one was some song by Claude Debussy. It was pretty cool and it got me aquainted with the English horn. The second song was "Dare You To Move" by Switchfoot. I thought it was really cool that someone brought in a Switchfoot CD, and I learned about the chord progression in the song. The last song was "Classical Duke" by Canadian Brass. Apparently the Canadian Brass performed at UM last year. And that was my day in music theory.

My teeth hurt... but they don't really hurt. It's more of a weird ache like they're longing to be pushed on. It's annoying.

I went to the walk-in honors advising hours and the lady basically shot down my plans for next semester. That annoyed me. I was all set on taking Psych 111, but she said I should take a science class. Grr. I like science but it seems very hard here. So now I'm stuck again with less than a week to decide.

..for the sake of justice...

Thanksgiving weekend was fun. We beat the guys in a game of Cranium on Friday and they were moping around for a while.

I'm annoyed right now. Some organization did a thing on my high school "with a special emphasis on...Parsell" (a teacher). Oh, that made me go grrr. Sure, Parsell was helpful to Jessie, but she's horrible to everyone else and she did not deserve any recognition. I'm glad Kev was recognized, because he is a great person and a great teacher. But Parsell? I think not. What about Angie? She helps more people and is a lot more liked than Parsell is. What about Doc? He's a great teacher and he does more for his students and this town than any of the other teachers. They deserve the recognition more than Parsell does.

Parsell is just a grumpy old lady who pulls random (and very unfair) grades out of her butt. I wasn't screwed over much when I was in her class, but that was because I was one of the types that she wasn't as hard on. I was the one who was perceived as "top of the class" and so she automatically gave me one of the highest grades like she always does with that type of person (whether they deserve it or not). Then there's the "poor-little-they-do-their-best" type. These are people who are obviously worse students and worse at the subject matter than others but who still manage to get higher grades than the third type of people: the "average" ones. The "average" ones are not necessarily average; they could be one of the best in their class but just not have the reputation as "top of the class". These people are the ones that I frequently see screwed over. I've seen these people work their butts off studying something that they understand well, only to get a worse grade on the assignment than the "poor-little" students who didn't even read the book the assignment was on. I've seen these people write a good paper only to be beat by the students (some are "poor-little" and some are not) whose writing abilities are far below that of the "average" student's.

How can this be right? How can this be fair? It might be ok if she told them that she was going to challenge some of them by grading them harder with the intention of motivating them to do their best. It might be ok if she told them she was going to go easier on the students that aren't as good in the subject with the intention of not discouraging them. ..."might" being the key-word in both of these cases. She make either of these statements. It just comes down to the fact that she grades according to the person and not the quality of the work, not what the person actually deserves in the class. I will admit that the work carries some weight, but, if you had seen what I have, you would wonder just now much the quality of work actually matters in her classes. Also, how great of a teacher can she be if, in all the years she has taught AP English, not one of her students has passed the AP test? I'm doing well in my U of M Honors Great Books class, but yet Vanessa, who is quite possibly a better writer and analyzer/understander of literature than I am, was not able to pass the AP English test with Parsell as her teacher.

I'm just laying out how I feel. I realize that it doesn't affect me anymore, but it still affects my friends and it still bothers me that this can continue to take place. I would rather have had the organization not pick my old high school than have the high school get national attention with an emphasis on Parsell.

Everything Is Wonderful Now

Here I am... Thanksgiving break. It turned out to be a very good thing that I skipped my Wednesday classes. Snow storms are not conducive to driving home efficiently. I saw Vanessa Tuesday afternoon and that was great. Walking in the school with her was just like old times. It wasn't weird like going in with the current juniors and seniors is. Wednesday night was really great because, despite the snow storm, a bunch of us met at H&H and had dinner. It was me, Vanessa, Steve, Andrew, Jessie, Aaron, and DJ... kinda like a class of '04 thing.

I'm here at my grandparents' house with all of my relatives who I already listed in a previous post. Will is so cute! Adrienne broke her leg in October, so she is on crutches. We played an instense game of Cranium tonight. It was me and Adrienne against Michael, Jon, and Rob. The guys just barely won. I'm having much fun. I drove a three-wheeler today for the first time in 4 or 5 years. Good times.

Well, I thought I had a lot to say but I guess I'm just not really in a writing mood right now... so this will have to do.

Happy Thanksgiving!

"Far Beyond The Sun"

I have much to say today (kind of), so get ready.

First of all, after only 5 hours of sleep, I got up and went to German this morning. I bought a coffee on my way out of the dorm and it was quite good. German was the typical German. We didn't have any homework because we have a test tomorrow, so that made me happy. Plus, I usually sit next to Leah and she's fun to talk with.

After German, I went to the "fishbowl", but no computers were open, so I went to the Denison Building. On my way there, I picked up a couple cool leaves and was stopped by some guy who gave me a book (for a small donation, of course). The book, which was titled The Journey of Self-Discovery, is apparently about some Indian (India not America) religion called Vedic or Krishna Consiousness or something. I surmised as much before I agreed to take it, but I was sufficiently intrigued and so I took the book even though it was obviously propaganda of a false religion. The book claims to offer "a sure pathway to the oasis of higher, spiritual awareness" and to help a person "come to a state of permanent peace and happiness". Right.

I continued on to Denison, and because I was over 30 minutes early for my calc class, I explored the inside of Denison and East Hall. I was going to look for the plaque to the uni-bomber, but there were people sitting in front of where I thought it was so I left. It reminded me of the time that Vanessa and I printed off a picture of Timothy McVay, drew a beard on him in paint, and then passed it off to Stormont as some Russian criminal.

I then went to Calculus where I correctly identified the equation of a semi-circle in front of everyone... gotta love those conic sections. We did integrals and it was really fun because I was understanding it... even the psycho stuff. I actually wanted to see the proofs. Also, I found out that the grade of my calc exam might actually be an A instead of a B. After calc, I went to lunch. When I was in line, I saw someone that looked a lot like Parsell. Yes, very scary. I ate lunch with Alison and Bob, and I saw Steve but he didn't seem to see me.

Music Theory was next, and it was fun. While I was waiting outside the classroom, I could here someone playing the piano inside. After a minute or so, I recognized the song to be one that I had played a few years ago... Polonaisse Militaire or something. During class, we listened to music that some guy named Noah brought in. The one song was really cool.

I then met up with my German group, but Chris couldn't come so we called it off (thankfully). Because I now had free time, I went all the way to the M Den on Main St and bought stuff. Shopping is always fun.

That was my day thus far. The rest will probably not be anything special or interesting. I'll probably watch Stargate for the rest of the night. I think that's all I have to say... nothing extraordinary, just my daily adventures. Oh, and I'm going home tomorrow! Today was just a very happy day.

I can calculate roots like the calculator does.

Yes, I can. Calculus is wonderful.

That was the worst game ever. And that's all there is to say... except that I love you, Iowa!

I feel (or felt) poopy. Sickness is really not pleasant when you're at college... not that it ever is, but it's definitely worse here. I woke up yesterday morning feeling fine. I had slept 10.5 hours and I was still tired, but that's not too abnormal. Then towards the end of the football game I began to feel a little strange. After the football game when I was doing my homework, I noticed that I felt kind of feverish and I felt even more feverish at dinner. A little while after dinner I didn't feel good, but it wasn't food-sick, it was just sick-sick. Now it's Sunday afternoon and I feel a little better. I slept for about 10 hours last night. It was nice.

My homework is done. All my homework that is due before Thanksgiving break is done, and it's only Sunday afternoon. It feels good, but it also makes me feel bad. My friend Alison is always doing homework. If she's not eating or at band or at class, she's doing homework. My roommate Stephanie is frequently doing homework also. I guess there are some things I could be doing, such as reading Thucydides, doing the GB study questions, studying for my calc quiz on Tuesday, or studying for my German test on Tuesday, but I just don't have the motivation to do those things at this time.

Sometimes I wish that Vanessa and I had gone to the same college. I remember one time in band I was seriously considering applying to West Virginia University just so there would be the option to go to the same college. I'm glad that I'm here though because I love it here and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else, but sometimes I wonder what it would've been like. I can just imagine it... we'd be in calc together or we'd at least work on calc together, we'd go to the library to work on homework but we would talk more than work, we'd just hang out. I don't know... it's weird to have these new friends and have no history with them whatsoever. None of them really know me even close to as well as all my high school friends did (and still do). Even Ryan, who I had no history with, I had history with. I mean, we didn't know each other until last year but we still could relate - we had a lot of the same experiences that come from going to the same school and living in the same town and knowing the same people. Most of the people I've met are from large schools and larger cities and tend to get wide-eyed when they ask what church I went to back home and I say Mennonite (note: it is the Christian friends who tend to ask that, not the other ones). I don't know... high school was so fun with Vanessa. We were significantly different and yet still good friends. We understood each other. I don't know... I guess it just would've been easier to bring that here with me than having to create it anew. Even if another one of my friends went to the same college as I (which they won't), it wouldn't be the same as if Vanessa and I went to the same college. I tend to miss high school and those great things that came with it. It's funny how the bad things about high school have faded away and now I remember it like it was the best thing ever. I do remember the times when I couldn't wait for high school to be over and I do remember the things that I hated and the people I could've lived without knowing and the bad experiences, but those memories pale in comparison to the many good things in high school that came from my great friends and those few admirable teachers that taught those few valuable classes that made the other waste of time classes worth putting up with. Anyway...

When I was typing that, a song that brings back a rush of memories and feelings from high school came on Launch. It was intense.

Apparently I'm Canadian

So yeah. I've been dubbed "the Canadian" in my German group. Apparently I say "out" weirdly like a Canadian and apparently it's very noticeable. Other people have noticed it too. Some other highlights from my German group meeting are the banana man, "I like penguins", the monster squirrel, the hamburger and frankfurter soccer game, "oi...vay", and a little bit of your mother.

Nothing much else happened today.

There's only 3.5 more days until I get to go home. I can't wait. It's not that I don't like it here, because I do like it here, but I like being home too. Plus, I'm here all the time. Sometimes I just need a break. My roommate Stephanie goes home or goes somewhere every weekend, but I wouldn't want to do that. I'd miss out on so much if I did that.

So... I thought I had something else to say, but it appears that I don't.

Burnt Toast and Alcohol

...the breakfast of champions... or should I say, "the leaders and best"?

I did some more Christmas shopping today, but I made the mistake of wearing my winter coat. Winter coats are very warm. As I was sweating my way through Steve and Barry's and Team Apparel, I was dreaming of the moment when I'd be back in my room drinking my Sobe Elixer (cranberry grapefruit flavored juice beverage), and then after a 8 minute walk down State St in the 65 degree heat, that dream became a reality. I bought almost $50 worth of Michigan stuff, but none of it was for me or for any of you, unless you happen to be my father, my grandfather, my cousin Adrienne, or my cousin Will.

"Religion, morality, and knowledge, being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." Where do you suppose that quote comes from? The clever student would suggest that it comes from the front of Angell Hall, which it does. But where was it originally stated? Well, it is from none other than Article III of the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which provided land in the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley regions for settlement (basically Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Illinois). I bet you were dying to know that.

Now that I've gotten a lot of worries off of my back and out of my mind, I am free again to think and write as much as I want.

I spend about a half an hour each day just walking to and from my classes. On Mondays, my walking time can exceed 1 hour... just walking... uphill, downhill, across the streets, along the streets, through the diag, under the arch thing, between buildings, through buildings, under buildings, up and down stairs and steps, into and out of elevators, down the halls, through the doors, through the grass, under trees, over leaves, through water, in the rain, under the sun and clouds, through the wind, in the snow (coming soon!), in the cold and heat, and finally to my seat I walk.

If you were wondering, the title does not refer to my breakfast but to the various smells of South Quad's east-side stairwell today. I came back from class and it smelled like burnt toast. I came back from shopping and it smelled like alcohol. What will be next? I guess I'll find out when I go to dinner.

Sniffing Sharpies makes me smarter.

I really don't have much to say. I took my 2nd calc mid-term today. It could go either way, really. But I'm happy right now because before I turned it in, I found and fixed one mistake and had a huge breakthrough on one problem. I'm drinking a smoothie right now. It's good.

Steph and I are having a Shrek 2 watching party tonight and Alison is probably coming too.

Guess when I'm coming/going home for Thanksgiving. I bet you can't... or maybe you can. It's really not that hard to figure out, but maybe for some slower ones it might be. I am skipping all of my classes on Wednesday. It's a little sad because I'll be dumber about Thucydides, missing some new calc stuff, and I won't get to see Stefan Kuhlman in German. But it doesn't matter because I'll be home at 4ish on Tuesday. Yay for me!

That is all.

Adam Supernant for MSA

Actually, I don't know if I will vote for Adam or not. After all, Tommy V sounds good to me. I don't know what Adam's position is on the issues... I didn't even know he was running until I saw his name on the sidewalk. So I don't know. Then Will Foss stopped by and tried to get me to vote for him. I don't know who I will vote for.

My calc mid-term is Wednesday. I'm not so sure about this one.

I can't wait for Thanksgiving break. I'm thinking about going home Tuesday and skipping all of my classes on Wednesday. That doesn't seem likely to happen though. Thanksgiving vacation is always fun. All of the family on my mom's side goes to my grandparent's house for the weekend. My cousins Deb (21), Crystal (21), Derrick (19), Jon (16), Adrienne (14), Michael (13), and Will (2) will be there. By the way, the numbers after their names are their approximate ages. It will be fun times. Last year Crystal and Deb brought Seth and Rob, their boyfriends. I guess Deb and Rob are kind of engaged now or something. My aunts and uncles will be there too (Clay and Rose, John and Lois, Darren and Kathee, and Kevin). There will also be 2 or 3 dogs there. I can't wait... although I could live without the dogs. We all know how I feel about dogs.

I will be studying for my calc mid-term for the rest of the night. It probably won't be bad... I think I'll have fun with it.

Runts are Wonderful

Today in the math lab, I saw a real-live nerd... an actual nerd complete with ankle-hugging pants, glasses, messed-up brown hair, higher voice with a little lisp, and a butt that was way too big for his pants. He was a very stereotypical nerd.

I finally got my Great Books paper back yesterday. It was a B+... not bad. I would've perferred an A, any A, but I'll take a B+... I'm not complaining.

Nothing interesting has happened really. I got an A on my last German test. I conquered an evil calc problem and subdued an even more evil calc problem. I get to start picking my classes for next semester. I want to take German 231 and Math 186, but the other two-ish spots are still open. I'm thinking about:
- Psych 111 or 114 (intro to psych and honors intro to psych respectively)
- Psych 121 which is titled, "First-Year Seminar in Psychology as a Natural Science". But Alison's stories from her seminar make me nervous...
- Orgo (Chem 210, 211... a.k.a. organic chemistry and lab)
- some kind of physics (125-General Physics: Mechanics and Sound or 140-General Physics 1)
- maybe a bio class (not 162 because I already have credit for that one thanks to good ol' AP bio class, heh heh), maybe Bio 102 which is something about botany and is taught by George Estabrook (seriously)
- maybe a philosophy class, but I might wait until next year for that one
- maybe an anthro(pology) class (to fulfill my "race and ethnicity" requirement)
- and then I have to take some class to fulfill my dumb honors "literature and ideas" requirement (Great Books 192, Classic Civ 102, and others that they haven't bothered to tell us about).
I don't know what I will do. I want to do Campus Band and I probably won't take another actual music class this year so I can leave room to explore. I guess I won't know for sure what I'm taking until December 6th. What do you think I should do?

Ich werde morgen nach hause gehen. Ich kann nicht warten.

With An Ambience of Nothing Left

I had gotten to Calc early today and was about to start reading Antigone, but then I realized something: if there's one thing I don't have to read this semester, it's Antigone. I had to read it last year and so the cliff notes will definitely suffice.

This weekend was exhausting, but it was fun. I got home at 4pm on Friday and left for Pinconning 1.5 hours later. Caleb Hazen was there and I didn't recognize him at all. He was very nice and very fun. Monica, Caleb, Joe Bontrager, and I played Dutch Blitz until midnight on Friday night. Monica and I had the older girls... all four of them. It was a small camp, but that didn't make it any less fun. We played hockey a couple times, and I scored a few times each game. Joe and I had some pretty intense battles for the ball, and Caleb and I had a nice rivalry going on. The weather was also nice this weekend.

Today was. That's really the only way to describe it: it was there, it existed. I was so tired. On the way back to Ann Arbor this morning, I slept most of the way. Then it was very warm in Music Theory and I could hardly stay awake because of it. Calc was entirely stupid... applications (of the derivitive) to business and economics. Yuck. I took a nap this afternnoon from 4:20ish to 5:40ish. It was nice. I fell asleep listening to my Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring soundtrack. The last song I remember was the one where they find the mushrooms. As the songs were playing, I watched the movie in my head until I fell asleep. There are a couple spots where I can actually put in the words, but I was sleeping during those.

I saw the nothern lights last night... aurora borealis. It was completely impressive... ganz cool.

"Sifted times I take another breath, with an ambience of nothing left. So heal my heart, rain down your love, these waters bring me back to life." -Falling Up

If only I could think of a title for this thing...

I went to the math lab and found out that I am an idiot. Not explicitly, but there was enough clarity. The twp problems seemed insurmountable, but it turned out that if I would have tried a little harder than thinking, "I have no clue whatsoever" and then dropping it, I would have been able to figure out at least one. But then I felt stupid besides, because the guy asked me twice what we would do to simplify and I was like, "huh?" It wasn't because I actually was stupid, it was because I looked at the equation and saw the answer as if it was entirely obvious, and so I got confused when he wanted to simplify.

Alison and I stepped on the M in the diag this morning before Great Books. We officially took and passed our first blue books, and so we stepped on the M since the curse no longer applied to us (the curse being if you step on the M in the diag before you take your first blue book, you will fail it).

Oh my goodness, guess what!!! I found this really really cool leaf today. Well, actually I think I found it yesterday but I picked it up today on the way to the math lab. But then I thought I ripped it when I put it in my backpack, so I picked up another one on my way back. So now I have two really cool leaves. I love leaves and trees. Sometime I just want to walk around campus and pick up a bunch of different leaves... there are a ton of cool leaves. I saw a nifty-weird red one today and so many different kinds of Oak leaves... big ones, small ones, full ones, skinny ones, smooth-rounded ones, jagged ones... it was fun looking at them all.

***I added some new pictures from college to my album on Imagestation, so if you still have the link, go look at them... or if you don't have the link and you would like it, I can send it to you.***

I dare you to post a comment... comments are fun.

"Words that paint a legacy of life"

BUSH WINS! M Go Bush! I liked Kerry's speech though... Edwards' not so much. "This was an historic election" - Cheney. The voters turned out in record numbers, and I was one of those voters. Cheney's speech was ok... I liked Bush's speech. Well, I'm glad that is over.

Good news: I got an A on my Great Books mid-term. On each of the five essays I had to write, I got an A, so I got an A overall. There were various "good"s written throughout my exam and on the front of the first page, she wrote "good exam!" ...so I'm happy. And, I now get to step on the "M" in the diag.

Another good thing that happened today was that my Great Books paper was pushed back another week. It was originally due on October 29th, but because the due date for our first paper was pushed back a week, she moved this one to November 5th. But then today, because she didn't have our other papers to give back to us, she moved the due date back to November 12. It's fine with me.

I'm really sick of my one roommate. She wakes me up at night and she wakes me up in the morning. She got the window stuck open and hasn't taken any action to remedy the situation. She leaves the door open, and so we have a wonderful ice cold breeze blowing through the room. She throws her stuff everywhere and takes up at least 1.5 times more space than either Steph or I do. Her area is disgusting and sometimes it smells. Ok, I'm done complaining now. It could be worse, but it's still not good.

Sometimes I just want to write... not the dumb essay writing but just writing. I hate writing essays or papers. I don't know... I guess writing some types of papers isn't too bad, but I hate writing where I have to analyze literature or something. That is torturous and laborious. But I really do enjoy writing. When I write, my vocabulary expands. For example, I'll be writing along nicely and come to a point where I'll need a word. Sometimes a word will pop into my head and it'll sound right but I always have to check it to make sure I'm not misusing it. Or sometimes I can think of a word but it's not the word that I want to use, so I go to my trusty thesaurus and find some better words. In that way, writing expands my vocabulary. Also when I write, I can improve my writing, grammar, and writing style. It allows me to experiment with different things and then, in general, improve my writing. Practice makes you better, I suppose. I really do enjoy writing, just like I really do enjoy thinking. Writing is like an excuse for me to sit around and think about stuff. When I write, it releases some of my tension, anger, or sadness... not that that's how I feel every time I write or anything.

You'll be happy to know that, according to Microsoft Word, this post is only at a grade level of 5.9. But, when I checked the grade level of this post, it got me to thinking, and I then checked some of the entries from my journal on my computer. One from September of this year was at a grade level of 9.0... not bad considering I don't try to make my writing spectacular when I do journals and stuff. I also checked one from March of 2000, when I was an 8th grader... it was at a grade level of 3.6. Both of them were rather lengthy (I wanted a good sample so it wouldn't be based on two sentences). One from July of 2002 was 7.5. ...makes sense. My first GB paper was somewhere in the 11's and my GB paper that I'm working on now is currently at 12.

...and then after I checked the grade levels of my journal entries, I started reading them. There's a lot of memories in that thing... Krohn, band with Bishop, Loga's reading class, camp (lots of camp), seminar in 9th grade and all the many times I had to stay after class, me having a crush on Kenny, Chemistry and Algebra 2 in 10th grade and my intense fear of Doc, Columbus, trips to Cedar Point, Speech class and all its joys, ACTs (oh yeah! 33!), my situation with silver nitrate, AP classes, knowledge bowl, labs and studying and throwing beakers against the wall, my 3-word "graduation speech", band band and more band (festivals, concerts, solo & ensemble, concert band, jazz band, marching band), me not getting into UM, me getting into UM the next day, M Go Your Mother, AP tests, prom, graduation and my real graduation speech, and then finally stuff from this school year. No matter how many times I read through it, the memories never get old. I'm really glad I took the time to write them down.

Election Day

I voted in my first ever presidential election! Go BUSH! Actually, because I am pessimistic, I don't think Bush will win... but I'm hoping!

Yesterday I accomplished much... but I still feel behind. So I will be working a lot again today.

I put pictures from the football game on imagestation a couple days ago... check them out.

Collide is in my CD player right now.... it's a great CD. Listening to this CD makes me want to drive around in my car. I miss my car.

I don't know if I want to go to the Northwestern game or if I want to go home that weekend. It's a tough decision.