i will

So work, school, Danny, and Stories have kept me too busy to think about posting. This summer session is almost over, and thank god because my junior english teacher is the worst teacher I've had in my entire life. At first I thought she was just annoying, but not the worst; recently I've decided that she is, in fact, the absolute worst, no doubts about it.

( Ranting about the evil teacher )

So that's incredibly frustrating. Enraging, really.

My other summer class is much nicer. More appropriate, I think. There's an appropriate amount of work--we've had two projects that require out-of-class work, plus normal class stuff (keep in mind these are only 6 week courses)--and she grades more normally, if not more relaxed than normal.

Stories has slowed down considerably but I haven't lost hope. I do wish I had more methods for speeding things up there, but it's difficult. I don't know what else I can add. I need to send out an activity check. I think I'll go do that.

And work stuff. I think I'll skip that for now.

So. In my stupid class, I found out my presentation will be Thursday, May 8th. She's weird; most teachers would penalize you for not being in class the day presentation dates are assigned, but she didn't. May 6th was all filled up so she gave me the 8th, which is nice since the 6th is my birthday and it'll be nice not to deal with her on my birthday. I'm still not sure exactly what to do, though. I need to read the books she assigned me, of course. And I still need to go see some Japan exhibits. The presentation is apparently more of a progress report on our papers. The way I understand it so far, we write a little reflection on each exhibit we go to, but the big project and paper are on the material she assigned us -- in my case, The Woman in the Dunes and The Ruined Map by Kobo Abe or Abe Kobo or whichever way it technically goes.

I think I'll do fine. I'll probably tie in the exhibits I go to however I can. She still hasn't given any real guidelines for the project or paper, so I don't know how long the paper should be or anything. The presentation is supposed to be around ten minutes. Maybe it's good, we've got creative leeway. I could really wow her if I put the effort in, maybe get an A. I also have a little three paragraph paper type deal to write on three of the Noh plays that was assigned Thursday when I missed class. It was... Eguchi, Komachi, and the one following Komachi in the packet, birds and songs or some mess like that. What were the Buddhist conflicts? Etc. Because I don't want a zero on an assignment. I'll have low enough participation; I'm sure she can tell I don't give a crap, and while I don't think she dislikes me as much as she seemed to at the beginning, I don't think she views me in a great light as a student.

Anyway. There's this crazy company called Vector that advertises jobs for students on campus. I've seen the fliers in the education building forever, but I never checked it out until today after I passed a girl standing on the corner on the way to class handing out cards for the company. I thought it would be something like Monster or fastweb but for jobs because it's advertised as Work For Students, but it's just one company looking for employees. And they're insane. Minimum base pay anywhere in the country is $11, and apparently in this area minimum is $17. I submitted an application, and fifteen minutes later they called me. I was in class, so I didn't pick up, but I called them back once I got out and I already have an interview scheduled for Friday at 2:30pm in Rockville. Tomorrow I'll have Danny show me how to find it -- no way am I going to be late. She said to come a little early so I could fill out the full application. I wonder if I should make a resume or anything? Anyway, it's no experience necessary, they provide training, and wow. That would be amazing. Danny doesn't even get paid that much.

They have to have tons of people interviewing all the time, so there's no guarantee I'll get a job, but I can hope. And I also hope that, if I get the job, it isn't completely dull.

So yeah. I should do some homework. It's funny how there's always more to update with -- like how I almost died yesterday before work on the blind curve leaving our house -- but I need to stop. It's quiz night in HONR219V, and those are harder to BS without thoroughly reading the material than the response papers.

My god. So I stayed up until 3 last night to finish the comm speech and 8-10 page gov paper due today. The gov paper? Yeah, I started it yesterday. I had my research sources, just hadn't actually started or pulled quotes from the sources yet or anything. But I finished both. I did mostly well on the speech, I think, though there was one point when I was really shaky and tripping over my tongue. I recovered well at the end, so hopefully that'll make up for it. The paper... is 8 pages, if you're lenient, which my gov TA generally is. It's about 7 and 4/5ths pages, with 1.15" margins on the left and right, and the MLA style header of double spaced name, teacher, class, date, four lines to the title, four lines to the beginning of the paper. So basically formatted with a title page and 1" margins it'd probably be 7 pages, maybe a little on the 8th page, but... I can pray. Like I said, the TA's pretty lenient.

So I'm typing this on my pretty new Mac, which I got on Friday and is a large part of the reason I procrastinated so badly on the paper and speech. That and going to the Redskins game on Sunday, which was a total bummer. The game after Sean Taylor's death? C'mon guys, you should've won. It was just the Bills!

The j on this keyboard isn't as sensitive as the other keys. I have to consciously press it. Meh.

Anyway, I really like my new macbook. It's so light and fast, and iTunes finally works again, and man can it play movies. Streaming TV shows online is no problem. There are some drawbacks. Like Ruckus, the free online music downloading website affiliated with Maryland, only works with Windows Media Player. The Windows version. There's a Mac version apparently, but it doesn't work on that. So no legally free downloads of music. Meh. And I got Office for Mac, but when I put my powerpoint for my comm speech onto the class computer (Windows), it had a couple problems. The pictures didn't show up, and the font was enlarged. Still, it's a really good system, quick, and I have a feeling once I learn how to work everything properly I'll love it so much better than Windows.

So the end of the semester is fast approaching. I have a final next Thursday, and then three finals on Monday and Tuesday the week after that. Two on Monday and one on Tuesday. The two on Monday are going to suck because one's 8 to 10 and the other's 10:30 to 12:30, but at least the second isn't a real final. It's my honors seminar (which I've grown to hate, ironically, since I thought it'd be my favorite class), and we're just going to read our manifestos or some shit.

Sooo. I need to get the printer drivers from Danny's house so I can make my printer work with this computer. I fucked it up because apparently you aren't supposed to download printer installation to Leopard becomes it comes with all these printer drivers already. I had to uninstall the one I downloaded and delete the Lexmark folder, and I'll have to pull it back off the OS cd when I get to Danny's tonight. We're also supposed to go get a christmas tree from his uncle. Good thing I don't have anything else due until after the weekend... Ha, and Danny's so jealous of my macbook. He's wanted one for ages but I get one because my laptop decided to give out.

Agh. I survived the paper due on Monday and the speech due on Tuesday. I still have an exam tomorrow. But by the end of the semester I'll have, among other (smaller) assignments, a government paper, a group presentation on a form of alternative energy for HONR100, and a research paper and speech for COMM200. By Monday I have to read a book and a half in history, plus a couple chapters in the text... and I have to write a blog for journalism... and a journal entry for HONR100. By Tuesday, government reading, reading for my honors seminar. I guess that's not so bad. My history midterm is the Monday after next. Hm. Anyway, so I have to study for my gov exam tomorrow. I have to read notes straight off my palm pilot since the damn thing won't sync with my computer. Blah.

I want my Danny. =/

I have free time and I'm not sick. I mean, I have the mildest throat tickle thing going on, but I'm not actually sick anymore. I finished my project for school... with Romeo. The original deal was that I would write the paper (five pages, ten sources in the bibliography) and he would put together the poster, which I thought was more than fair. But then he said, "Why don't we work on the poster together during lunch on Monday?" So I spent about five hours researching and writing the damn paper Sunday, and then I printed out the pictures he found for the poster (and used up all my dad's expensive ink). I had bought the poster already on Saturday, so I had to carry it to school -- literally, the bus didn't go down on Reading Terrace this morning so I had to walk up to the metro with this posterboard and my binder and backpack, catch the train to Addison Road, and then walk up to the school. Then I missed lunch to work on the project with him.

Okay so in all, I contributed the five-page paper and all research necessary to write it, the poster board, the paper and ink and time to print the pictures... I titled the board and wrote the captions for all the pictures. Romeo found the pictures online, cut them out, bought a glue stick for a quarter, and pasted them on. And, presumably, took the poster to class. I dunno since I left when third period started and he was still working.

I'm irritated, but at the same time I don't think I trust what might have resulted if I hadn't put in this much work, if I'd just told him "I wrote the paper, you do the rest." Life isn't fair I guess, if you want a decent project you have to put in the work necessary to make it as nice as you want it to be.

I had fun in gym though. My spanish kids are great. Tomas was asking me what 'itchy' and 'brothel' mean. I swear the only english Jelver knows is 'eighteen' and 'masturbation'. I think the second one is mine and Yuka's fault. Anyway, since I have my replacement cell now, I've been taking pictures of friends again, and I have this nice sequence of events showing how the guys tackled an unwilling Tomas so I could get a picture of him. After that I guess he decided I'd already stolen his soul and couldn't do any more harm, because he posed for a final picture.

Derrick refused to let me take his picture and wiggled my number out of me by promising to send me one of him. Haha.

I love my picture of Chris at school, he looks so... "but that was my lunch money!" with the sadface.

I'm still making straight As, it appears. I was worried in precalc since I had the only A in class and I missed a couple days -- I didn't know if I was missing any assignments that might drag my grade down. But I have a 97. Grading period ends Wednesday, although according to Mike we don't get report cards for three weeks (what shit is that?).

I suppose that's all, but I miss my Yukanana, waaaaaaaa.