Schooled

Well, the first two weeks of the semester are over already. Like, dang.

An overview, therefore, of my classes:

Adult Development and Aging: My first class of the week, 8:30 AM on Mondays as well as Wednesdays. No, really, it's 8:30. For various reasons, Dr. Maiden gave us an extra ten minutes without actually running class over by that much. Anyway, the course is pretty self-explanatory from the title. Now, let me say on the subject of aging: last semester both Drs. Strong and Mayberry were a little worried that they might be getting old, especially Dr. Strong. On the other end of the spectrum, Dr. Maiden is showing some age and apparently refuses to recognize it. This should be an experience. ...The course, being partly science-based, is at present less interesting than you'd expect. So far, the highlight has been an unexpected and fairly-intense discussion about religion in America (not as cynical a discussion, I can't help thinking, as it would have been if it'd been held in an English class). The girls in my class are nice. Most of the guys are, too, though one has been difficult since the first days' attendance (an odd place to start). Laura-from-folk-dancing is there with me, and so are Jen-the-English-major and Rachel-from-Openhym, so that's cool.

Parenting Seminar: Whoa. This is probably going to be the Text and Image of senior year, in the sense that it looks to be simultaneously the most interesting, most demanding, most rewarding, most stressful, and most frustrating class I have. It's two credits and meets for two hours just once a week. It's wildly popular within the psych department and is, at seventeen students, the smallest psychology class I've ever had. Maybe Dr. Lichtman is a person, like Dr. Strong, where for a while you think he dislikes you, and then you realize he likes you after all. I'm hoping so, or else he doesn't actually like me. We'll see. ...Kathy is in this class with me, as is Andrew-from-IV and a bunch of other familiar faces from Dr. Gagne's class, whom I now get to know in much more depth.

Writing Formal Poetry (Sestinas and All): My only, and final, English class. While Parenting Seminar will probably end up being my best class, this will probably be the most consistently-enjoyable. Dr. Gray is cool, the other students are largely-familiar (but not all the normal English majors...a lot of minors instead, which is nice in its way) and also cool, and I both like form and meter and am (so far) good with them. Still, I haven't written a lot of poetry, and most of what I have is fairly bad anyway, so we'll see whether my sense of rhythm can be matched with a better sense of imagination.

Health Psychology: Also called medical psychology. So far, this is sort of like health class with a psychology twist (for example, we looked at models of behavior to explain health habits--that is, what principles of behavior come into play when people are trying to, say, quit smoking, or when you're trying to predict which people are likely to get a flu shot and which aren't?). It, too, is fairly science-based, though (oppositely from AD&A) more interesting than you'd expect, given the subject matter. This is another once-a-week-for-two-hours two-credit class. Dr. Maiden also teaches this. I noted with some trepidation, on the day of the first class, that he told the same anecdotes in this class as he already had in AD&A. I ran this by Jess, who nodded and said that was probably going to keep happening. Ah. ...I can't think offhand of any friends of mine who're in this one with me.

Besides those, there're the thesis and Chamber Singers. Choir is finally not doing a spring requiem, probably 'cause'a the tour, not that I'm actually touring (cool as it admittedly would be to sing with a Greek community-choir). For this I'm relieved. I don't dislike requiems as a genre, but they're a little like jazz: impressive (usually) when you hear them, but an incredible pain to learn. (As you can tell, I also sort of dislike vocal jazz arrangements [instrumental are better...and jazz solos or duets, especially in terms of blues, can be amazing]. Requiems only run the risk of being boring; jazz is sometimes boring and sometimes just unsatisfying. Some of it really is good, though.)

Writing Center goes on. I have a two-hour shift this semester, but it's not as bad as I expected. My others are 9:20, so I've only gotten a student during the two-hour session as yet.

Folk dancing goes very well. I get to get there on time now that Bible study is on Mondays (Kaleb and Andrea; studying Jesus as a person--probably heavy on the gospels--and related digressions, since Kaleb likes to challenge and expound--but we haven't really embarked yet), and I've taught four dances I learned over Christmas break. We got the mp3s 'cause Otto ripped them off the tape the Syracuse people gave me. Good stuff.

IV goes well, too. Not much to say for the moment, other than that.

It looks to be an interesting final semester, all in all. More later on other things.

-Laurel

Um...lesson learned.

So I made two batches of caramel candy for the IV birthday party for Joe (not an official function; Andrea planned it, and a bunch of people showed up, and we held it here at the house). I've been making caramel candy periodically this year, enjoying having a candy thermometer for the first time.

One batch, which I'd flavored raspberry, came out just about perfectly, despite what I expected. The other was standard vanilla, which I've made without any trouble about twice before. I put some of Erica's double-strength vanilla in, but the sugar syrup's temperature rose abnormally fast before that step, for which I couldn't account, so I didn't think that had changed anything. It also didn't turn golden brown, the way the raspberry batch did, and didn't bubble up as high. It also turned rock hard, though it was still good when we managed to break it into pieces, and only took up about half the pan space. All very mysterious. I wondered what I'd done wrong. Tom suspected the supervanilla. I suspected thermal shock to my thermometer, such that I couldn't tell what the real temperature was and had cooked it to hard-crack instead of firm-to-hard-ball.

The problem was far simpler, it turns out, than either. Opening the refrigerator late tonight, after everyone had left, I did a double take when I saw a half-pint of cream. I had started out with two. If both had gone into caramels, where had this one...

But no, I hadn't. I'd remembered the cream for the raspberry batch. I had forgotten it outright with the vanilla.

...Right.

The upside is, I'll get a chance to redeem myself soon. It's fresh cream, so it has to be used within the next few days. Because of the incredible amount of sugar we have left over from the honors-program Christmas party, perhaps a good way to do this is just to make more caramel. It's only a twenty-minute process anyway, start to finish. :)

-Laurel

-thinking out loud, hence the unintentional crypticness-

Back in high school I would have done almost anything in my power for a friend, and I never seemed to get tired of it, is the really amazing thing. Think of all the energy we all sank into, say, Aubrey. Such a double-edged sword that was, because the upside was, he learned that girls could be friends without being attracted to him. On the minus side, he started making things up to get our pity.

It was worth it then to me. But I don't think it'd be worth it now. I wonder if that's good or bad.

-Laurel

Link of the whenever

See how animals sound around the world! Yay!

http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/ballc/animals/

-Laurel

On the Newbs (n00bs? n3w85?) and other things

Going back to school tomorrow...and I still have nineteen more Newberys to read before I'm done with the series. ::facepalm:: Morehouse is probably going to raise the Critical Eyebrows of Doom at me (she has done this before, and it's a pretty awful sensation...can I get any agreement from Lily Jo? :-P) if I don't manage to get the number down to less than ten before she e-mails me for a thesis meeting, and I don't know when she's gonna e-mail, so I'm gonna have to gamble on this one. I read ten of them over break, which is going for a combined two thousand pages, and have had other things to do (like apply to grad school), but this is still far less than I wanted to have done. I should have read fewer big-kid books, to be sure, and more little-kid ones.

Supposedly the Almond library is open even on MLK Day, so I'll call on Monday and then scoot on over if they are. With Herrick being renovated, I can't get at their children's lit, so I joined the Southern Tier Library System a while back. In fact, I owe it late fees for a Newb I took out but got too busy to read--I finally read it today instead, out of the library here. ::snort::

Two fish are still living: Sparkette (I've stopped worrying about fish TB, you'll all be excited to know) and Hoover. Oh, and Pepe's alive still, too. Brett went last night, but he looks to finish out the losses. So I'm off to do a little packing for tomorrow (am hoping to leave a little after church, whenever and wherever that turns out to be) and see about maybe transferring the remaining fish into the smaller tank. I'll keep the fish I've got...though probably I'll end up breeding guppies with Erica and Chris by next month, at the rate these things go, haha.

'sides, I still have a lot of fish food to use up. :-P

Next you hear from me, I'll probably be back in Alfred. :)

One more semester. Well, may it be the best in some way or another.

-Laurel

::giggles::

Niiiiice.

Yaaaaay! If they make a t-shirt of this, I am so getting it.

-Laurel

Well, whew.

Today, in sentence fragments:

Snow. Slow driving. Insurance-related appointment delay. RIT. Jitters Cafe. Phone tag. Unsuccessful dress-shopping. Appointment, finally. Dilated pupils. Interesting drive home. Lots of Newsboys music. Lots of praying. Pizza and fries(...?).

It's really too long a story to give much more than that. Anyway, I went to Rochester, and was successful in both getting contacts ordered and not getting in an accident. Accomplishing both of those together: possibly against the dominant odds.

Seriously, was today National Play Contemporary-Christian Music in Unexpected Settings Day, and I just missed the memo? Two snippets (Newsboys! And Switchfoot!) before commercial breaks on Regis and Kelly, of all places, this morning (and I, like, never watch Regis...I think my doing so this morning had something to do with looking for local school closings here, but I honestly can't remember anymore), and it's not like they were having Christian-band guests or anything. And two songs at the mall (Jars of Clay and MercyMe), to which I had to go for the appointment. I mean, Switchfoot and JoC are crossover bands, so that's not as surprising, but the other two? Huh.

Okay, it's bedtime.

-Laurel

It's not Best Album of 2006 (well, according to "newreleasetuesday.com," whoever they are) for nothin'...

Newsboys' Go: excellent. I mean, if you like their style of music. But, happily for me, I do.

So today's eye exam didn't quite work out. I need new contacts (and, for that matter, updated lenses in my glasses), but all the eye places around here, because I'd be a new patient, would need me to come back next week for a follow-up before they'd be okay with really giving me contacts, 'cause they have to check the fit. Problem is, next week I'd be back at school. It isn't my negligence that's caused this dilemma, either: we had to switch insurance, and the new card's only just come in.

The only answer that presents itself? Go to the place in Rochester for the eye exam instead. There, at least, I'm not a new patient. So I'm signed up for an appointment tomorrow.

Tonight we're supposed to get between nine and eighteen inches of snow, after months without any to speak of. ::snorts:: My dad's already emphasized, like three or four times, that if the weather's bad, I shouldn't go.

But if I can, I'm going. Back to Rochester, second time in as many weeks! Homestars: get a hold of me if you want some lunch. :-D

-Laurel

More random neural findings

Oh my gosh, so it would never have occurred to me, until I heard about it, that people at Urbana this year would be taking video footage and posting it up on YouTube. I mean, it's all grainy and stuff, but I got a couple of glimpses, including part of a book plug by the spectacular Greg Jao, who got to do all the announcements for Urbana (he did the same thing when I was at Basileia; see entry, for I believe I mentioned him), and who deserves the Facebook fangroup that sprang up in his honor (sadly, because it's Urbana-oriented, I feel dorky joining it, so I haven't).

Not that this is interesting to, like, anybody else, but it's my own darn blog anyway.

Lost the other two cherry barbs to the ich. Pepe doesn't look far behind. The other three range from "getting worse, but still truckin'" to "is he even sick?" Fish care is a shadowy, bizarre, interesting hobby.

-Laurel

And pity 'tis 'tis true

On the other hand, I've just discovered, while putting in the second cycle of medication, that the ich got the best of both Mary and Lila. Must've just been tonight; I've been watching the tank like a vulture all day, ready to stick my net in if need be. ...The medicine works in three cycles over the course of nine days. It's been three days now, technically, being after midnight and all. So, by the time I pack back up for Alfred, the fish will be either cured or dead. Last time it was dead, right around Day Eight. We'll see.

I'm doing what I can; everything else is out of my hands. It'll turn out right, however it turns out. I really am serious about ending my fish-keeping venture if this ends in disaster. If I have to trade my hopes of a full and happy tank, and little fish-babies, for the absence of parasites and viruses and carcinogenic ich-killer (teratogenic, too; "wear gloves," the bottle suggests), so be it.

-Laurel

Partly for 'Nanda, Bethie, Bunny, and maybe Lily?

::squeeee!:: Totally did not make the connection that, because Newsboys made Wow 2007, they probably had a new album out (though, hey, singles have gotten on there before). But they do, and the sample tracks sound great. I'm so excited.

-Laurel

::apparently in the style of Braveheart, though I never saw it:: FRE-E-E-E-E-DO-O-O-O-O-O-O-M!

The Syracuse application is submitted, and I can't submit the Binghamton one until I'm back in Alfred anyway. So all that nonsense is over with for now, thank goodness.

On to Newbery-reading like whoa, 'cause (yipe!) I'm behind.

-Laurel

::forehead-thwap::

Now the tank has ich. Which is completely unfair, because I didn't do anything this time that would cause it. Maybe the water temperature dropped way down while I was gone. It was a little low when I came back.

If they all die, I think I'm hanging it up as a fishkeeper. Or else I'm keeping regular goldfish, which, while much less pretty, must also be way less trouble.

-Laurel

Wednesday

I will be in Rochester tomorrow (Wednesday), despite my grad essays not being done; my dad says they "still need polish." He and I are pretty much getting on each other's nerves about it, since I, probably unreasonably, object to his looking at this primarily from a marketing/admissions perspective (he protests that, such being his job, he can't help it); and he apparently objects to my not caring whether every single sentence in each essay is as perfect as possible from an admissions perspective. Honestly, at this point, I am rapidly ceasing to care whether I get into the place; I want to be done with this long, redundant, boring exercise in self-aggrandizement, and if I'm not cutting-edge enough for them, they're welcome to reject me.

Thank heaven, at least, that Dad didn't side with Dr. Strong and make me apply to really prestigious places. Goodness only knows what that would have been like.

So, in the grand tradition of Newbery Medal books, the child is going to gain independence and assert identity by getting the heck away from the parents. I was going to go tomorrow anyway, so it's happy timing on my part.

Back on Thursday.

-Laurel

Um, oh.

It's spelled pent-e-costal, as it turns out. So all my clarifications in the last two posts had to be, in turn, re-edited. Well, huh.

And this is, yes, simultaneously ridiculous and horrible, but here's what I want to know about it: what on earth would possess the Sun-Times to note, in so deadpan a fashion, what color board-game piece this girl was using?

-Laurel

A thought, upon looking out my window as I talk to myself about my grad essays

We seriously have, in this neighborhood, the fattest squirrels that I believe I have ever seen. What on earth are they eating?

I don't remember anything I learned in upper-level Spanish about literary modes of inquiry (which I assume is the same as literary theory), so I believe I'm going to skip out of discussing what are supposedly my favorite ones in my grad essay, since it's optional anyway. Before I attempt to label myself, I'd better be sure I know what I'm talking about, especially (this feels like I'm lying by silence, but it's true) since Syracuse is probably not likely to be impressed by any of my guesses anyway. I am probably some form of something old-school, like classicism or something (though, again, I haven't studied enough to know), which is probably considered hopelessly ignorant. Well, whatever.

I have changed a few words here and there in the previous post, because it occurs to me that a) I made it sound like Pearce was pentecostal (it is not), and b) I used the word "something" three times in a sentence.

Okay, back to work.

-Laurel