Friday, February 27, 2009

Indecision

I'm having a problem. Every time I take a new class, I get entirely engrossed in the subject and decide that I want to devote my life to studying it. Except for the subject that is my current major.

So, right now....geology is neat. And I have a special place in my heart for paleontology. But studying hominid evolution....even more neat. And studying evolution and ecology? Awesome.

I can't seem to stick with one thing...every semester I freak out and change my major and it's getting really close to being a problem, since sooner or later, I won't be taking intro courses and what classes I do take will start counting toward a specific area of study.

That, and I have this "should I go to school in the fall" dilemma. That was the plan...until I found out that I need another CT scan next winter and possibly surgery on my freaking brain (which isn't such a big deal, really, but I bet it will be $$$). So, quitting my job and giving up my amazing health care in exchange for student health care seems silly - especially since there's a chance that they could label my head problem a "pre-existing condition."

If I work another year, I'll be four courses closer to a degree and will have time to save up more money for school. But what if next year they tell me I need a CT scan in another year...and maybe surgery in another year?

J is probably looking at 3 years of school after this one, so it makes sense to work another year if that's the case.

GAH! Can someone else figure this out for me, because the amount of time I spend worrying about it is getting ridiculous.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

You know what today is???

It's Brian's birthday! Make sure to stop in and wish him a happy day!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's pretty crazy over here at the SDS household. I have a lab report due Monday and a midterm in my mineralogy class on Wednesday. I also have a potential modeling job on Tuesday (I find out today - fingers crossed!) and a ton of reading to do for both of my classes.

I bought some tickets to see the comedian, Louis C.K., at a local venue in early March and tickets to see Ani Difranco in April - two shows I'm really looking forward to! It'll be nice to do something other than schoolwork!

Monday, February 23, 2009

Best Valentine's Day cookie, ever...

Okay, I know that Valentine's Day was, like, nine days ago, but this had to be posted:



There was a female cookie, too, but I ate that one before I got the idea to photograph it.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

We're tired of doing homework...

Emily and I are sick of doing homework this morning. I have something resembling the flu. I'm kinda sore and my throat is raw and my chest feels tight and congested. I had the chills last night. I feel like poo.



I saw a personal trainer last weekend and I only have six weeks to whip myself into good enough shape to do 5 pull ups. It's been one week and I've only made it to the gym twice. I was hoping to go today and tomorrow so that I could claim 4 workouts per week, but I think it's wiser to stay home and relax.

Maybe tomorrow I'll feel better. Thankfully, I have hours and hours of work to do at home, including a lab report on Drosophila melanogastor that I REALLY do not want to do. My goal is to get the Methods and Introduction sections finished today. I can't do the Discussion, Results or Abstract sections yet because there's some confusion about what data I'm supposed to be using.

And in the first week in March, I have my mineralogy midterm. I honestly don't even know what I should be studying because we've approached things so randomly in the class. Thankfully, the professor is providing us with a review outline.

I suppose I should end this post, since it's a procrastination tool. Back to work. *cough*cough*

Thursday, February 19, 2009

I'm sick of winter, but this is beautiful...

Not having a car has been pretty sweet. I take a bus to work and the walk to the bus stop is really pleasant in the morning (unless I'm running late). Last night, we got a couple of inches of snow and this morning, everything was whitish blue - even the sky.





Thursday, February 12, 2009

Happy Birthday!

Today is Charles Darwin's birthday...though I'm sure you know that already. There are lots of things going on in celebration around the country (though not much around here except for a short 10-minute cake-eating session before a geology class). And there's also a lot going on in the blogosphere.

Tom Holtz has composed "The Twelve Days of Darwin"
Julia has written a post about Darwin's Image
Neil has tempted us with some awesome cupcakes!
Larry Moran shares an excerpt from Janet Browne's biography of Darwin
Dave Hone offers us "Darwin in Beijing"
Chris tells us all about Darwin in Australia
Micheal shares some links
ReBecca has, like, a ton of posts :)
The Panda's Thumb has lots 'o' links and posts

I'm sure there's more (and if you'd like me to list yours...let me know!) and it's fairly early in the day...so keep checking your favorite blogs!

Darwin probably would have freaked out from all this attention, were he still alive - so I think I'm going to celebrate his birthday as quietly as possible. I have a geology lab tonight and we're going to the Barre granite quarry to do some mineral identification (um....granite???). Darwin's ideas were largely influenced by the geologists of his time and Darwin made some of his own important geological observations - namely that geological processes implied a very long Earth history.

So, a little geology for Darwin Day...and then, at 7, I have an exam covering evolution!

I plan to end the day on the couch, eating ice cream. And then tomorrow, it's J's birthday (and Julia's!!!), so the celebrations will continue.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Things Get Crazy

School this semester has been all over the place. My classes are great. I'm really enjoying my biology class because we're covering evolution and all things related. I'm also enjoying my mineralogy class, even if some of the material is not all that interesting (it's hard for me to make it through a chapter about microscopes and various spectroscopic techniques when the reading is quite technical and I don't understand it). Still, I like it and find it fascinating and I've been constantly reminding myself that there's plenty of time to learn and that I'm not required to know everything about minerals this semester.

So, things are going well and my only complaint this semester...okay, it's not the only one, but it's the biggest...is that there's no structure to my schedule. My biology class was going by effortlessly. I read a chapter from a book every couple of days and did some in-lab exercises and answered really easy questions like "Is it okay to omit data from your lab report?" I was beginning to think it would be smooth-sailing this semester. And then BAM! Yesterday, I got two lab reports dumped in my lap - I have an exam on Thursday night and a decent-sized homework assignment due next Monday. All within the next two weeks. It's doable...but I'm a little stressed out.

My geology class is fairly unstructured, too. We've had one homework assignment and almost no assigned reading. I've been reading from the book, anyway, but up until a week ago, I had to guess at which chapters the information we covered in class was found. We have two exams in the class - a midterm and a final. Since we don't have any other tests/quizzes, I don't know what to expect on the midterm, which makes up a lot of the grade. I'm not sure at this point what it is I should know and in what detail I should know it. We've really just skimmed a bunch of topics; spectroscopy, definition of a mineral, symmetry, and what influences mineral formation.

I'm sure I'll survive. If I can make it through the next two weeks without freaking out, I'll be pretty proud of myself!

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

HAHAHAHAHAHAH! HAHAHAHAHH!

This is hilarious, but if you're going to watch it in a public place, I have to warn you that it's not light on the expletives!



Pretty sure I bought one of those last year and that it doesn't work anymore.

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Outlet

I've been engaging in an argument about evolution in the comment section of the local newspaper (due to recent local events involving a propagandist and an honorary degree) for the last few mornings and this morning, I got really, really tired of it. I've been called a "libtard," been accused of only being interested in listening to people who share my worldview, been accused of loving Micheal Moore (are you serious? not even close!). And I've seen people rail on other people for being religious. It's ugly - lots of hate and irrational finger-pointing. Everyone is talking at each other with their fingers in their ears. It's a battle between liberalism and conservatism. It's a battle between religious and non-religious. Except I don't believe that's the truth.

I believe that the people who are most aggressively arguing are also the most extreme. Extreme liberals, extreme conservatives. It's a public display of the most extreme types of people around. I'm willing to bet that there are many people out there, completely disinterested in arguing, or thinking there's a better way, who are religious, liberal people that understand evolution and its contributions to our understanding of the world. And there are atheist conservatives who feel the same way. It's not as black and white as it seems. I refuse to believe that.

What I do notice is that the majority of people I've come into contact with arguing that evolution is full of holes seem to have a very very poor understanding of how evolution works. And it angers me that there are people out there that are so willing to call it a lie, when their understanding of evolution doesn't even go beyond the high school level.