Journal: November 2005 Archives

For example, the other morning, I was reading my email and sipping some hot chocolate when I went to set the cup down and it flipped and the hot chocolate spilled directly onto the keyboard of my laptop, debilitating it. I called my dad shortly after, half in tears, realizing how silly I must have sounded, "Hi Dad.. I was drinking.." (not a good start to the conversation) ".. hot chocolate .." (slightly better) ".. and I spilled it all over the laptop and now it's BROKEN! *small sob*" (all downhill). Thankfully, Dad was able to calm me down and ship me overnight the big bulky laptop from back in the day (aka freshman year). From then on, things have improved considerably, except for my dad adopting a new nickname for me: Cocoa (which I actually kind of like). I shipped him back the defunct chocolate-coated laptop (sounds pretty good, huh?) this afternoon.

Other than that, I haven't been very stupid lately.

I got a 97 on my Econ test (11 point curve, with 5 pts from the bonus quizzes -- so originally an 81 -- that might qualify as oh-so-slightly-stupid), which ended up being ranked 5th in the class, which holds 7 of the 10 high scores or something -- so you do the math.

I got an A on my Spanish paper, which I am VERY proud of, become COME ON -- this is HENAGER we're talking about.. he's one of the most brilliant literature-minded men I know (granted, that's like out of 10 people, but still). He wrote (after a little criticism about my conclusion, which I never write well anyway): "The essay is splendidly conceived and elaborated upon. In particular, your work about the notion of visible defects vs. invisible ones [one facet of my paper] has potential as the nucleus of a more extensive study, if at some point you want to follow up and elaborate on similar themes ... Good work, Becky. Congrats. A"

En español: "El ensayo está estupendamente concebido y elaborado. En particular, tu trabajo sobre la noción de los defectos visibles vs. los invisibles tiene posibilidades como el núcleo de un estudio más extendido si alguna vez quieres seguir elaborando semejantes temas.. Buen trabajo, Becky. Te felicito. A"

I also got an A on that Management exam the other week, though I'm fairly convinced that about half of it was dumb luck, because I haven't read Meindl, and there were like 3 or 4 questions about it on there.. So I was guessing, or writing down the single sentence summary that Lisette told me before class. Yay for guessing. Maybe I am formulating my new academic technique: not to read. :)

All right. It's almost 11:30 and I have to shower. Yoga was hard tonight. I love it but hate it? Good thing my mom is in town to take me out to dinner and listen to me gripe about my crazy spasming muscles and push-ups that I can't do, and give me more cake than is good for me (10 bonus points if you caught that Persuasion reference) (now I feel like watching it but I don't have it at school). Goodnight, gentle readers.

Rebecca--
This is an interesting paper on the Pan Torso. You find some nice images for comparison and [garble] do(?) more fully explain the stylistic [something] and Hellenistic qualities of the piece. All the major issues were touched upon but a bit more detail would help. Overall this is a nice paper on an intriguing piece.
Victor

B+

I was on the Cardinals website, seeing if there were any pictures of the demolition of Busch Stadium, when I came across this, "Rooney Joins Cards Radio Team". I got kind of excited because there was a picture of Mike Shannon (infamous in my household for his *heh heh heh* and *wooh!*), making what I thought was a gesture of valediction, taking leave and welcoming his predecessor to ring in a new era of Cardinals baseball broadcasting. At least, that's what I hoped.

Nope.

They decided to let Wayne Hagin go (with a year remaining on his contract, paid in full) and replace him, instead. As far as I'm concerned, Wayne was the better half of the broadcasting partnership, staying on topic (the baseball game at hand), whereas Mike loved to wander aimlessly into the ancient past (the 60s in general, his 1964 World Series home run off of Hall of Fame pitcher Whitey Ford in particular, etc.)

I think they're making a mistake.

This week is gonna be horrible. Why doesn't life come with a fast-forward button, so I could already be done with my Stats test (Wednesday), my Econ test (Thursday), my art paper (Friday), my Spanish re-write (Friday), and my Management test (next Tuesday). Tomorrow is the dermatologist. Boo, hoo.

For my art class, we have to write this paper, in which we choose an object (from a period which we've studied a little in class) from the Brooks Museum and get in-depth about it. My choice was largely regulated because of the limited number of periods we've studied and the limited number of exhibits at the Brooks. But, in the end, I chose Torso of Pan, Greco-Roman. Part of the assignment is to draw your object, since that makes you notice details that might've gone unseen otherwise.

And I know Calapitter has been a bit of a picture-fest lately, but I figure.. who has time for a thousand words anyway?

Hey, I thought this week was supposed to be easy. Last week (or was it the one before?) was the one with all the hard tests and papers and whatnot. I don't know what happened, but suddenly I got buried and anything I tried to do.. I felt like I was wading around in a 4 feet deep ball-pit (you know, the kind they have at McDonalds Playplaces) minus all the fun, plus all the sluggishness. So yeah, I guess it's fair to say that I haven't been efficient with my time this week, but it's hard to be efficient when I've been as tired as I have. And it only gets worse from here. Next week goes as follows.

• Monday: 2 classes, workout, regular homework.


• Tuesday: 3 classes, study for Stats exam, Art homework.
• Wednesday: Stats exam, Art class, take out recycling, yoga class, study for Econ test, Mgmt and Spanish homework.


• Thursday: Management class, Econ test, Spanish class, finish Art paper and Spanish re-write.


• Friday: Stats class, Art class (with paper due), Spanish re-write due.

*Freaks out a little.*

Otherwise, good times. I bought one of those Glade PlugIns Scented Oil Outlets and now my room smells like Apple Cinnamon; sometimes it's a little overbearing, even if I have it on the lowest setting (my room is probably just too small for the amount of particles it releases). It's nice to have, though, when the cleaning ladies come around and pour bleach products on everything in the bathroom so you can't even breathe for a couple hours after. Glade has some pretty cool-sounding scents, I'm interested to try Clean Linen, Berries, Rainshower, Suddenly Spring, and Vanilla Breeze.

Also, my Our Lady Peace and Augustana CDs came -- thanks, parents -- and I am happy with them, though, for some strange reason, it's hard for me to listen to this music. I guess I keep thinking about the night of the concert and how wonderful it was, and I'm so plugged in to that, that I feel it so much, it almost hurts. It's too hard to explain, I know that doesn't make any sense. But I am enjoying the CDs, maybe too much. Maybe that's it. I also found out that Raine Maida (lead singer of OLP) is married to Chantal Kreviazuk, and that they recently had their second little boy together. I'm glad.

Despite all the craziness and frustration I've been having with school, I'm happy, I suppose. I'm tired of this layout, but yall know I'm busy. I spend what leisure time I have with my boyfriend or in front of the TV. I do need to take my camera outside tomorrow afternoon to take pictures of the leaves' changing colors. Here it is, November, and yet the high on Saturday is 80. I love it. I also know that I'll be spending at least an hour in the Brooks Museum staring at a stone torso. How weird is the world sometimes?

There's a girl outside my room talking on the phone in the hallway, really loudly actually, but she sounds like this girl named Elizabeth in my Spanish class (and Yoga class -- she has excellent tree pose), but not Southern enough. I know that it's probably not Elizabeth because she said she was going back home (somewhere in Alabama) to have her DEBUTANTE BALL.. who knew that those were still happening? I like Rhodes because it's the North of the South and the South of the North. There's kids from New York, Miami, and California.. plenty of St Louis kids, too. This kid (also in my Spanish class) was born in Saudi Arabia but goes to Chaminade in St Louis. Crazy. I don't know where I'm going with this.

For all my WHS band kids who read this (probably like two people), I told (in Spanish class, in Spanish) the story of all those Monk Days that we had for being misbehaved. It was interesting. I also got my Spanish paper back -- the one I was scared and feeling bad about, imagining Henager would be sitting in his living room or wherever, grading, thinking "These observations are so basic and obvious.. where's the real analysis?" Because he's a brilliant, brilliant man and expects a lot out of people. And I, in no way, expected an A-. AHHHHHHH!!! *jumps around excitedly*

How I do tend to ramble! Gotta love unstructured, random posts about everything and nothing. I wish I didn't have so much work, or that I could be content with a lower GPA, because there are such cool people on this campus, I am starting to realize. Many of them are in my Spanish class. I don't know. Some people are realllllly annoying though and--I hate to say it but--smell bad. You'd think they'd get the hang of that hygiene thing by now, but apparently you can just let it go when you don't have parents hovering over you, saying, "You have to take a shower tonight. Wash behind your ears. Use soap, PLEASE."

I guess that's really all I have for tonight. I'll leave you with two pictures. One: today I wore a v-neck over my polar bear shirt, and the polar bear's head was poking out. Two: my Bruise Almighty (Junior).