Saturation

My dad planned to cook brocolli soup chicken for dinner tonight, but Damian had a "German Night Out." No Damian, no three-person table (my mom never eats with us), so no dinner.

My dad changed his mind to a Subway run. I didn't mind this, since we haven't gone to Subway for a good month; we decided to try the Subway that opened next to Albertson's. I never stopped smirking during the drive there, though; our regular Subway is on Martin Way, close to the Sleater-Kinney bridge; in other words, running distance.

So, we got to the Olympia Square Subway, and we see that all they have to offer for bread is two honey-oat loafs. A crinkled frown grew on my dad's face as he suggested we eat somewhere else.

Now, I did my damnedest to not laugh while leaving the Subway; I cracked once we got in the car. "OK, so because this Subway doesn't have any bread we like, let's just go down the street."

Blegh; my dad gave me the Microeconomics term for this phenomenon: A franchise's "Market Saturation."

Hopeful correction

I am a really, really, really crappy scheduler. 15 credits last quarter being a bit much should've been a subtle hint. But no. I had to go the 17 route; all praise the electives!

And damn, Film Lit. actually worries me. Chuckle all ye will, but reading a book scares me. OK, chuckle a bit more. I haven't read a book for enjoyment since...well, actually winter break when I picked up the Hobbit when I wasn't trying to program Othello; but before winter break, my Month of Wholly Holy Nothing, I haven't read a book for pleasure, and no English requirement, since...I believe fall quarter of 2001, when I finished Vonnegut's Timequake.

And just for a bit more reading fun, in French, we discussed the research project for the next...eh, I don't know how long; but it's gonna be on a person. I fear the worst case scenario where I scratch the project and translate and re-buff my Joe Dassin report; I may actually do this, if I can find some karaoke tracks of any of his songs.

I usually get kinda antsy about time and me on the first day of a quarter, or semester; it's a definite pattern I've developed since Summer of last year, when Chaos Math at Evergreen started and Neal Nelson told us that we were going to read a 1,300 page book, a 500 page book, and write a research paper, on a topic independent of the two books, in five weeks. Actually, I must correct myself - the research paper was due in 3.

Luck seems to be on my side most of the time, though. That summer, the 1,300 page book turned out to have a couple hundred pages devoted to the index, and the remaining 900 or so turned out to be half pictures. This quarter, my Econ. class is a dud. I mean, really; I may never cease bitching about this, but taking a class from that man is like a correspondence course, which involves sitting in a room for four hours a week.

Anywhoo, pertaining to the title:
Well, my dad came home yesterday and I told him about my lovely dermal allergic reaction. His thoughts are that since I didn't have irritated eyes or sneezing fits, I had a food-based reaction. Possible explanation: I ate three eggs instead of two for breakfast Saturday afternoon, as did Damian.

Ah well. The reaction's almost completely gone; still a few hive marks here and there, but I imagine sleeping tonight will be a helluva lot easier than last night, when I wished to sleep like a Conehead - standing, but I would have no blanket. Ah, to have had nothing touch my irritated forearms et al...

Good restful night, everybody.

Chat Blanc

I'm pretty sure I've bitterly blogged about my one allergy I knew about. Though it took me fifteen years of my life to figure out the throat shouldn't swell when one chomps down on a banana, I deduced "Ah ha! Deathly allergy!"

Well, I've found entry two on my known allergies list: Kid, the Yus' white cat.

Last night, Damian went over to Philip Yu's house for some good ol'-fashioned video-gamin', and brought Philip home to play some HALO here. I didn't notice that when he came home, though, that Damian's face was a little puffy and pink. He's allergic to Kid! Yet he plays with the cat anyway - well, how is any force of nature to keep Damian from playing with a cat...

Anywhoo, somehow Damian transferred some of the allergen to me, but I didn't realize it until I went to bed: I had a little itch on my earlobe that I scratched, which made it spread gradually over my head. I was reading my Psych text at the time, so I didn't realize that the feverish two-handed scratching of everything above my collar bone was not supposed to be happening.

Sleep wasn't too bad Sunday morning, until I woke into a half-conscious state and began scratching again. Grr.

By the time I got into the shower, I had hives on my forearms and chest (and that's what I could see - I'd hate to think of what my face looked like).

Come SOGO time, I had conditioned myself to not touch my head. However, the good ol' Sunday Night Homework call came, and I started to write an essay when I scratched my forehead once. Once; just one little swipe.

A list of what itches:
ears
cheeks
lower part of cheeks where the jawbone rests
neck - front, back, sides
the middle of my back in that one spot that's impossible to reach
the rest of my back
my stomach
my right pec (strangely, not the left)

Luckily, nothing ever happens to my legs.

Well, I guess I've procrastinated from my essay writing enough through this bloggal venting; good night, everyone; I promise to show up to school tomorrow with skin on my bones.

Vraiment faché

Ok, it's Superbowl Sunday, and the commercials attracted me to watch the TV for about a thirty seconds. The first thing I see is one of the worst examples of poor taste in advertising:

A Quizno's commercial showed a head chef's dedication to creating "the perfect sandwich" or whatnot (I don't think it even deserves capitalization, I care that little), by sending the message that "The sandwich is all that he thinks about." The third and last visual example, ending the commercial, was him walking away from a finished sandwich, wearing fine chef's attire on the torso, and only briefs below. OK.

The second visual was a shot of him getting into his car, with his house in the background, the lawn choked with brown; I don't know if it was dead Scotchbroom, but the yard wasn't something you'd want to run a lawnmower over. OK.

The first visual was the chef walking through his house, and passing a bird cage, with a dead bird lying on the floor, on its BACK!.

I vomit in Quizno's general direction.

____

I don't find the Dead Parrot sketch in Monty Python funny, either; I have touched two dead birds in my life, both pets, and they were quite stiff cadavers. So, seeing a Monty Python guy swing around (what I assume to have been) a plastic parrot just rubs my head-feathers the wrong way.

On a lighter note, while watching the SciFi channel one night at a friend's house, there was a little commercial-break-transition, where a man with only eyebrows for head hair had a crow (or raven) land on his head. I thought this was funny, imagining a downhill-rolling present to be left behind once the bird flew away. But then, with quite a shock value, the man's head above his eyebrows changes into a dragon's maw-ish shape and consumes the entire crow in one bite; black feathers flutter. I don't know why, but that I can find funny.

To Lighten the Load

Well, two hours ago, I had four essays due tomorrow at five o'clock in WRIT102: Two one-page responses to responses to an essay the class read, a two-page essay responding to another three essays assigned as reading, and the three page prospectus for my quarter-long, twenty page essay.

I've written a third of my prospectus, and finished one of those response-responses. The lightening of writing already makes the next three hours seem like they'll go by quick.

In other news, I got one bichuva cold. It's so cruel, it settled into my head in sixty minutes, right before my Econ. test at three o'clock. I developed the frog symptom about two hours ago. And I always thought these colds just mysteriously come in the night, sloppily snapping at you in the morning; ah well. Sniffle, sniffle, boo hoo, sniffle again; the worst that'll happen is that I'll miss Swing Dancing. Come to think of it, though, I probably won't stick around for the Art final period - I doubt you guys'll want to hear my morning ribbit. Ah well; to Thursday, everyone!

Chirp-ye no more

Once upon a psychology club meeting, Oli Newsome (hilarious psych. prof at SPSCC) presented to the club, "The Patrick Hypothesis." This theory is basically that risk-taking, outgoing people will be harder to offend in (insert taste here) humor.

Part one of the experiment: Develop a test to see who is an outgoing person. The criterium became this: Eat one of these babies. Yes, they are dead; they were alive (frozen, but alive) until about a hundredth of a second after they were thrown in a heated wok full of vegetable oil. They sizzle quite audibly.

Part two: Find an outgoing person.

Part two-point-five of the experiment: Have the person follow through on chomping the li'l bugger.

I was told that they would taste a bit like pumpkin seeds. I'd never had a pumpkin seed before in my life, but I doubt those taste like vegetable oil (the bellies absorbed a bit more than they should have - oh well). I also doubt that they would leave little tidbits like this behind.

Right before Oli's lecture in his next class (which I'm in) started, someone gave me a stick of gum. I heartily accepted it, though the cricket didn't leave much of an aftertaste (barely had a taste in the first place). I popped the stick in my mouth, and after about three chews, Oli started his lecture. He had to stop, though, because I gave quite a yelp: "Oh my god, I just found a little more cricket in my teeth!" It's surprising what gum can weed out of those tiny, unknown-to-be-large-enough-to-store-something areas.

Oli laughed and introduced his lecture with the results of the cricket consumption: of 30 people who attended the meeting, 17 ate a cricket. What's better, 4 of those people ate (at least) one live.

I'm gonna go to bed; I'll bet we're going to have bacon, eggs and hash browns for breakfast...mmm....

___

btw, Oli thought that those pictures I took (and so lovingly showcased) were pretty good. Even better than the pictures taken by the Sounds (school newspaper) guy that was there, with a bigger (and probably better) camera, with a bigger (and definitely better) lens. Oli has seen both sets of pictures, and he wanted me to be the Psych. club photographer. Yay!

If he follows my request on my title, you guys shall hear blog entries from the "Mysterious Sock Wielder" of the SPSCC Psychology club.

Boredom

I don't know if I've said this in one of my blogs before, but I recall mentioning somewhere or to someone that I haven't been bored for at least a year, possibly two (I either had school work to entertain myself, or nothing, and little of it, to keep me occupied. Believe me, I worshipped the latter). I realize now that this is an incomplete statement: Append outside of my classes, and the statement becomes a little less general, but still not specific enough. I've been quite bored in my English class, but that was the only boredom I could have in my junior year.

This year, my boredom is under good ol' Mr. Swenson. I forget also if I've ranted abäoot him, but I'll do it again anyway.

Here's how Macroeconomics (his class) goes: The homework is we read a chapter. When we get to class the next day, to insure that everybody does the reading, he gives a quiz over the chapter. Up to this point, I agree with him.

The ensuing lecture is on the reading material, and it takes a good deal of prodding to get anything out of him that isn't from the book. He's not exactly a fast talker, either; he spent twenty minutes today drawing a diagram, uttering something at five minute intervals, and then after he finished that, he stood for a few seconds, and erased it, saying, "Ah, it's in your book anyway."

That's not the worst part: Lemme give you a quote from him, that he said about fifteen minutes into drawing those graphs:
"I'm paid to take your time between 3:30 and 4:15."
He said this with a slight smile, trying to comfort(?).

I just gave my dad this quote, and I have this response from him: "Oh, Jesus, and he's an economist!"

For those of you (if any) who end up at SPSCC needing an Economics course, may you be warned.

Loup-Vert, faché

Life? What life?

It just occurred to me today that I don't have time for a life. (Meh, I say; not meh to Cassie, Katie, et al, but meh to the need to be non-productive for now.) I spend a lot of time at school...in fact, this much, by my schedule:

Monday/Wednesday:
0800 Orchestra
0902 Screw around in Art with Leah, Cassie, Miranda, and Nick; take pictures of said people; next semester, this'll be Film Literature
1010 French
1104 Lunch / Haul-Ass-To-SPSCC-Because-I-Didn't-Look-At-My-Watch-On-Some-Days time
1200 Swing Dancing (I'm hoping my shoes arrive by monday morning; else I'll have a long Tuesday too)
1315 Intro. to Psychology under the never-wastes-a-second Oli Newsome
1406 On study break until:
1715 Writing 102 under the fine liberal arts (and youngish) educator James Schneider
1928 Time to go home.
2000 Arrive home, eat, practice, sleep.
(Total time out of house: 12 hours)

Tuesday/Thursday:
(Same until noon, including the Haul-Ass-etc time)
1200 Choir (not on Thursday)
1305 Still Intro. to PsychoLogics, still under Oli (who begins lecture even before he's halfway through the doorway to the class)
1405 Theoretically, a lunch break; but I don't eat at SPSCC due to unconscious anti-social fears
1435 Macroeconomics; the lecture on what we read (it's fun for me, though, because Andrew Yu and I sit next to each other and joke for most of the two hours)
1650 Go home; eat; practice; try to sleep before 2300 (never happens anymore)
(Total time out of house: 10 hours)

Thursdays (until a better time is found between Anne and I):
2000 Viola lesson

And then, TGIF (or HSIF):
(same until noon)
1200 Choir (Hoorah for the basses, of which I am a third)
1315 Last class of the week!
1405 Go home; Practice; Look forward to SOGO next Sunday at 1815

Why is he doing that to himself? some of you might ask. Well, I had a few classes on a "Must do cheaply!" list, and by cheaply, I mean before I graduate from OHS and am off of the Running Start program. At the beginning of Winter Break, I had five 5-credit classes I wanted/needed to graduate, and decided to take them now so only two of them will bog my spring schedule.

I developed this bad habit of biting off more than my time could chew last year. Besides SOGO, I took French 3, Chemistry, English 11 (half of a class, really, as my Self-Assessment Essay implied through its discourse on Vaughn), and Honors Physics at Oly for the whole year, and had to commence Running Start.

Fall Quarter: Intro. to UNIX and Programming Logic. 8 credits, superbly simple classes, though Logic with Paul Smith was reason enough to take the Programming-sans-computers class.

Winter Quarter: Linear Algebra and a Western Civilizations (II) telecourse (10 credits total). The homework in Algebra was pretty intense, and the Western Civs course theoretically should have taken 9+ hours of reading every two weeks; still, I got an A- and an A, respectively, so I thought "Meh, not bad."

Here came the disaster: Spring Quarter:
Differential Equations, The Harder History Telecourse (Western Civ III), -and- Music Appreciation (15 credits). And, of course, the high school classes, which now included the Physics-C Mechanics AP, were still in the foreground (an awfully crowded foreground at this point).
I was quite happy to get to sleep by two o'clock on weekdays. I wasn't always quite happy with the sleep I got. (One day in May, my body overslept on 7 hours. In Physics that day, I spent a good chunk of the period with my newly rediscovered "Frictionless Spin" factor of the hall 4 lab's chairs, accompanied by zipping noises.)
Luckily, my only disaster out of that quarter was a 2 on the AP exam. *shrug* I love Mr. Elder, but his class is designed for a fine education, not a test. *2nd emphasizing shrug*

Now, I learned my lesson from that quarter, though one can argue "Then what the hell are you doing now, with 8 classes?" I'm taking the 8 classes now, so come springtime, I'll have a -life- again! I'll go out and dance for fun (not just entirely for the days I'm going to miss in Swing due to a lack of decent shoes), I'll have more time to find musics (sheet, mp3 and otherwise), and I'll even be able to read - not History, not Economics (and thus Politics *emphatic blegh*), but the Lord of the Rings, finally.

But besides all that, I'll have friends to see spring quarter, and I intend to enjoy every last minute I can spend with them, before college starts.

Au printemps, toute le monde