Saturday, February 18, 2012

The V-Word




To breaking out of your comfort zone - or what little of it you have left after being a theater minor - and doing something different in the hopes of spreading the word to end the violence against women and girls around the world.

For more information, click the link below to learn about Eve Ensler, V-Day, and other information.
The Vagina Monologues.

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

300 Heart-Shaped Sugar Cookies

A girl can wish, can't she? Apparently the six dozen my dad made for the house and delivered yesterday while they took my car to get it an inspection wasn't enough for the ravenous horde - and I say that with all the love in my heart - I live with. Considering these are also the people who ate their way through 74 homemade meatballs in one meal, I'm really not surprised.

I've had a fairly long day, including a rather awkwardly placed nap (which I really needed), and I've done some thinking. Normally Valentine's Day is a day when I feel more keenly the fact that I don't have a significant other. That I haven't had a date in three, almost four years. A day when it hurts just a little bit more to see girls wandering around with bouquets of flowers or boxes of chocolate-covered strawberries. The idea that they have someone for them in that capacity. And let's be clear, it's not just hetero couples. For those who have someone in that specific capacity, it's hard not to hit this particular day and feel a little left out.

The trick is to say to yourself it's only another day. All day. It's just Tuesday, February 14. Any other day.

There was class this morning. Then roughly two hours spent working on math disguised as chemistry. Looking back on that, my professors are the greatest. Especially for this independent study. They didn't have to take the time - we more or less worked through "lunch" though there was a package of Oreos out in the hallway to snack on - to work through this particular problem, and then work on another to make sure I really understood it, but they did. For that, the faculty in the Chemistry department are incredible.

And playing with little GC machines that used ambient air as the mobile phase? So totally cool. And yes, I will explain that further on down the road at some point, but the gist of it is that it was really cool science and a giant leap away from the monstrosity we had been using last semester.

Bottom line is that when you treat a day you might have problems with like any other day of the year, it gets more bearable. You don't necessarily remember what you think you're missing out on, but you realize more of what you can do. That it's possible to be an independent young lady (in my case) who's had to shuffle and reshuffle priorities and is still, sometimes, shuffling the deck again to find the perfect combination. Only it's probably not going to be perfect; merely workable. And then you work it.

That was for the "Heart-Shaped Sugar Cookies" part of the title. Here's the really fun part for today.

This is the 300th post for the Wandering Sagittarius.

I have this ridiculous smile on my face. I don't know why, but I have this smile on my face that won't seem to go away with the fact that I'm typing the 300th post in a blog that's not-quite three years old yet. That I have somehow managed to find enough in the life of an undergrad to write about for 300 posts. It's a little mind-blowing.

And thank you - a big thank you - to all of my 43 followers. Thank you, essentially, for listening. Ups, downs, those odd movements sideways. Thank you for hearing it all.

On a final note, while I raise my coffee cup to you wonderful people, happy 300th. Here's to looking forward to many, many more.

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Fantastic

This is going to sound a little odd, but one of my favorite bands is The Barenaked Ladies. I've been listening to them since I was in late middle school, early high school, and I have both their greatest hits album and their earlier album, Stunt. This is one of my favorite songs from that album, and I found a version of it where they're playing it in somebody's bathroom. Two men. A guitar. In a bathroom.

So. Some Fantastic (Ivory and Ivory)

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Crooked Orbit

While I grab the gumption to go back to wrestling with analytical chemistry - which is kicking my ass, by the way, thought you should know - and waiting for my coffee brewed this morning twenty minutes after I decided I was sleeping for another hour to reheat, I figured I should say something fairly worthwhile.

For those waiting on Murphy and Me updates, I'm working on it, but my current schedule doesn't really allow for a lot of time to do anything other than homework. I broke it down the other day, more or less, into what I think I do and wound up with:

Time Usage (Outside of Class and Lab)
95% - Homework
5% - Sleeping, Eating, Soccer, Writing, Community Service, Teaching Placement, and Relaxing


Go figure. Anyway, whatever this might look like on the outside, it's been keeping me much more calm and everything is going great so far. That's on the academic front.

On the Weight Watcher's front, some days it feels like it's working a little more than others. Predictably, I have my good weeks and my bad weeks, but none so bad as to make more than one trip to Cold Stone during the week. That is positively a thing of the past. I'm not entirely sure how accurate my housemate's WW scale is, and as I'm making at trip home this weekend for a little bit, I'll check in on the one in our home bathroom to see if there's been some progress.

Oh, before I forget - and how could I, considering they were moving furniture at lovely times of the day yesterday while moving in (which is expected) - we have 3 new housemates. They're men. No idea who they are, but I have run into one of two of them as they were on their way from the bathroom to the stairs to the third floor, though I don't think any of us have actually met them. We think they play a sport, but as my one housemate didn't see them during hockey warm-ups last night, we're not actually sure which sport they play.

Wandering into the bathroom in the morning just got a hell of a lot more interesting.

The email from our house manager said they would only be staying 1-2 weeks. Knowing our Residential Education system, they're probably going to be here for the rest of the semester, which is just fine with all of us. It's actually feels good to have a full house, believe it or not.

Last but not least, I'm approaching 300 posts. I'm a little excited about that, having been around long enough to have 300 posts. So, because of that - and because I have a love of this particular song in general - I'll leave you with the song I have stuck in my head nine times out of ten.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Instructions Included?

Sometimes I wonder if there's a right way and a wrong way to do this whole college thing. Which is weird, because for a lot of stuff I could give three shits about whether or not I'm playing by the rules.

Let's back up because that opening couple of sentences wasn't entirely....coherent.

College is about academics. Earn a degree in something practical (hopefully) and have some fun along the way. And that's great until your GPA winds up in the toilet from the worst semester of your life and you're left with, well, a really obvious direction and some choices that don't really feel like choices. Well, I've picked a direction, made a plan, and have support for this Plan. And yes, it deserves a capital letter because not only is it that important, I don't want it to get confused with other, lesser plans that happen day to day. This is a sort of life Plan we're talkin' about.

Anyway. So I have a direction and I have a plan, and so far, technically speaking, I've been executing this plan very well. I have yet to procrastinate on work. I've done all my reading for all my classes, and homework and everything else has been handed in one time. This Wednesday will mark three full weeks into the semester, and I think this is the best shape that I've ever been in and I really, really want to keep it going. I know I can keep it going which has become the crucial difference between this semester and others.

It's not a problem to be that focused during the week. Really, it's not. But once I hit Friday and Saturday, that little part of my brain, that part we don't necessarily like to listen to - or the part that shouts at us relentlessly - can't help but start to eke out, Are you sure you're doing this right?

Granted, I'm not big on going out and partying - I never have been, truthfully - but as I look at my housemates spending time getting ready (and all that encompasses), my offer to drive them turns into something halfway between being nice and concerned, and wanting to feel involved.

I haven't gone out one weekend this semester. I'm a senior. Is there something wrong with that picture?

The overwhelming part of me wants absolutely no cause or consideration for a repeat of last semester and last semester's GPA. None at all. It wasn't a happy time. Considering most everyone I talk to comments on how much more relaxed I am, I'll take it that everybody else could see just how destructive the last four months of 2011 were. And I had to just ride it out, and hope to come out on top. But now, with this fresh start - which it has been - I'm more or less content with what I'm doing and what I've currently got.

Stay in on weekends. Stay in on nights when there's no soccer. Do homework during free time in afternoons. Go to bed before midnight during week.

All of the above is working. Life is working. College is working.

But am I missing something quintessential to the college life? I'm a senior. Technically I'll still be a senior next year, but shouldn't there be something more to what's going on? Theoretically this is the last hoorah. But it's not, really. Not for me. And maybe that's what's making the difference. I don't really know, which is, honestly, why I'm asking you people.

It's not so much as a case of the grass being greener, but just wondering, sitting here on a Sunday night (early Monday morning, now), if there's something I'm missing.

Friday, February 3, 2012

A Cool Kid Friday Night

It's been a long week. Granted, I don't have class on Mondays, but I haven't heard from the teacher I'm supposed to be in with - I'm debating literally just showing up on Monday because I don't want to continue screwing around with this - and Wednesday's lab was spent making "Bouncing Putty" (Silly Putty, really), but in general, it's been a really long week. Wednesday was the day I stayed up the latest I've stayed up this entire semester - one in the morning - and then had a quick turn around to be in class at 8:45 the next morning with the entire afternoon spent at our Professor's house for food chem.

It's just been a long week.

The constant reminders coming through email and campus mail, along with the signs around campus for the Senior Event: Cap and Gown Measurements got a little difficult to handle. It was one of those days where it automatically gets filed under difficult because, you'd think with the technology we have today it would be feasible for them to get me off that email list. Hell, throw me onto the juniors list in the emails. I'm still a senior by the virtue of the amount of credits I have, but when you're not graduating, it hurts some deep part of you that doesn't quite have a handle on the fact that you're waiting a year.

I'm not entirely sure I'm making sense right now. I'm tired. It's 11:23, and I'm more than ready to crawl into bed. I hesitate to do that, though, because I told some of my friends I would DD for them. So I dropped them off a few houses down from one of the fraternity's and told them to call me when they were ready to be picked up. I didn't want to drink tonight, and I wanted them to be safe - someone was attacked earlier this week - and I figured I would just drive them rather than have them walking back this late.

Not that it's technically late. It's actually probably rather early.

Normal has become a sort of relative thing. My new normal is keeping track of my Weight Watcher's points, doing homework in nearly all of my free time so I can go to soccer, and then getting at least seven hours of sleep at night. So far, two and a half weeks into the semester, the plan is still going strong. The more you believe you can do something, the better you feel about actually accomplishing it.

And at the end of this week, while I'm really tired, I feel pretty damn good.
"The difference between life and the movies is that a script has to make sense, and life doesn't."

-Joseph L. Mankiewicz