Howdy!
It seems like it’s been AGES since I wrote something here! And you know what the quick-fix is for zero blog motivation? A new theme! I felt like my old theme had way too much stuff on it. Just stuff everywhere! And though the fancy Web 2.0 clickables seemed cool, it seemed like I was forgetting that blogging should be about the content, not about how many visitors and comments you get. That said, here’s my life thus far in reverse chronology:
Last weekend, I went to visit Jamie at her university! Jamie gave me a tour of her classes as well as her new dorm room. On Saturday, we “re-discovered” a cute little diner out in the middle of nowhere. It was a very small town (and a very conservative one), so Jamie and I felt like outsiders in a place where all the other customers were grandparents and their grandchildren. The food was okay (they burnt my sandwich) but the ice cream was awesome! Jamie tried the orange sherbet and I had the strawberries n’ cream. It was divine!
Later that evening, we met up with Jamie’s former roommate, Morgan, and went to Indianapolis for dinner. It was quite an adventure. After shopping, the plan was to go to a Mexican restaurant that Jamie had discovered online earlier that day. The restaurant had some great reviews and the website was impressive. When we finally arrived there around 9:30pm, we found that the restaurant was in the heart of, possibly, the worst side of town. All the surrounding buildings looked abandoned and shady and there was no one on the streets. Needless to say, we got out of there as soon as we could! We ended up eating dinner on the northern end of town at a Mexican restaurant located in Broadripple Village. The highlight of the night occurred afterward at a local hookah bar. Almost a year before, the three of us were in Broadripple and vowed that we would all try hookah for the first time together. According to Wikipedia, a hookah is a single or multi-stemmed (often glass-based) instrument for smoking tobacco in which the smoke is cooled and filtered by passing through water. I’ve never smoked anything in my life, so I was a little nervous, but also really excited!
It actually turned out to be a lot of fun! If you’ve ever smelled incense before, then you know what what a hookah bar smells like. All the people there were very chill and there was a wide variety of people too! It was nothing like the shady crowd I had imagined. Also, smoking from a hookah isn’t as difficult as it seems. I was worried that we would be coughing up lungs like the smoke-virgins we were, but smoking a hookah is pretty much breathing in flavored air. When you’ve savored the taste a bit, you breathe it out. Easy. All in all, we had a really good time.
On a different note, last week was my first week of fall semester! I’ve got a really good schedule this time around (Fridays off! Woo hoo!) and I’ve got some pretty interesting classes as well:
Monday & Wednesday
- Principles of Logic | 4:30pm-5:45pm
- Native American History | 6:00pm-7:15pm
Tuesday & Thursday
- General Geology | 9:00am-10:15am
- English Literature | 10:30am-11:45am
- Principles of Sociology | 12:00pm-1:15pm
Is that not an awesome schedule or what?! No more 1, 2, or 3 hour breaks! Yessss! I love college. I think I may have to dedicate a future post to how much I love it.
Finally, the week before last, my boyfriend, Mik, came to visit all the way from England! We met last November on Omegle and became pen pals. Over time emails became instant messages, instant messages became phone calls, phone calls became Skype calls, and nine months later, we finally met in person! Talk about finding love in unexpected places, right? We visited an amusement park, went shopping, watched movies, and spent an entire day with Jamie at her lake cottage. While we were there, she used her photography magic and took some lovely photos of Mik and I:
Overall, it was a wonderful week and I miss him dearly! A long-distance and international relationship can be difficult at times, but he’s well worth it! I’m one lucky girl! ;D
Anyway, that’s all for now!
Oh my, it looks like I haven’t updated in over a week! This time I actually do mean it when I say that I was insanely busy. Not only did I have exams and essays, but my relatives came down to spend the weekend at my house. I just haven’t had to motivation to blog! But you know what cures that? A new WordPress theme!
Anyway, one of the things I just love about college is the weird quirks and antics of the professors. I don’t think there’s such a thing as a “normal” professor. My friend told me his astronomy professor sometimes unknowingly leaves his clip-on microphone on while going to the bathroom, therefore broadcasting the events of the men’s restroom for the entire class to hear. Here are some quick profiles of a few of the professors I’ve had in my first year of college:
- Dr. F, Chemistry: About 70 years old, unmarried, claims he has “married” the university, refers to his students as his “babies,” randomly curses when his students don’t understand the concept (“You don’t get it? Dammit!”)
- Mr. L, Math: About 40 years old, married with children, EXTREMELY effeminate, makes the most horribly awkward analogies to explain math concepts (e.g. the rate of pumping breast milk), wears his pants as high as humanly possible
- Dr. A, English: About 50 years old, hairiest man I’ve ever seen, loves Nine Inch Nails and Lady Gaga, curses almost every class, makes random movie references (e.g. he connected the poetry of Emily Dickinson to the Final Destination series), often jokes that we should just end class and hit the bar… at 10 in the morning
And finally, Dr. L, English.
At first her mannerisms drove me up the wall, but now I think she’s downright funny! In fact, I like her so much that she get’s her own special section:
The Quirks of Dr. L
- She holds eye contact longer than normal. Most teachers/professors will make eye contact with his/her students for about a couple of seconds before moving on to another student. Not so with Dr. L. She will stare at you for a good two minutes before looking away. It’s particularly awkward when she just completes an explanation. In that case, she’ll keep staring at one person until she decides what she wants to talk about next. My typical thought process while in that class goes something like this:
“…and this is an example of feminism, uh huh, okay. Noted. Oh god. She’s looking at me. Crap. I hope she didn’t notice the Pikachu drawings on my notes. I don’t think she did. Ok, good. Maintain eye contact. Oh, she’s smiling. Yeah that’s right. Smile back. Nod your head like you’re understanding something. 5, 4, 3,2… Ah, she looked away!”
- She laughs at things that aren’t funny. This is likely a nervous tick, but it still amuses me. The trouble is, I never know if I should laugh with her or not!
“…and he finished this novel in 1943, HAHAHA!”
“…then she married another writer, HAHAHA!”
“…she had a nervous breakdown and died, HAHAHA!”
- And my personal favorite: She does not understand the concept of the scroll bar. Her organizational method is to keep all her lecture notes in one enormous Word document, which often spans 70+ pages or so. Instead of going down the document using the scroll bar like most people, she insists on using the PAGE DOWN BUTTON. Usually the first 15 minutes of class involves her looking for today’s notes. The class is silent and all you can hear is tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap… But then she’ll pass the page she needs, so then she goes up: tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap… Repeat 5x.
Mind you, I’m not trying to bash my professors or anything. I’m sure everyone has their own little quirks. I certainly do! I just feel they’re more pronounced in university professors. I love it!
Tell me, have you had any weird or crazy teachers or professors?
Hey there! I’ll have to write this post quickly. It sounds like our first big thunderstorm in my area! Mm, I love thunderstorms.
Today I decided to make a change with my blog. Lately I’ve been rather annoyed that most of my blog posts nowadays involve more pictures than words. I still enjoy taking part with Project 365, but I’ve found that when I miss a couple of days with my photos, I have to make a lengthy, photo-packed post just to keep up! As a result, my blog has become less of my thoughts and more of me explaining pictures. Therefore, I’ve decided to put all my Project 365 photos in their own, separate photo blog. Hopefully, that will clear some room in my posts for more meaningful chatter. (Heh, that’s an oxymoron.) The photo blog is set up and all the photos have been added, but there are still some little adjustments needed here and there. More updates on that in the future!
Anyway, today I spent my morning and a portion of my afternoon researching the personal life of the English author, Virginia Woolf and that was possibly the most depressing morning I’ve ever had. You see, I’m working on a group research project on Mrs. Woolf and it involves digging up details of her life beyond the typical biographical stuff. I’m embarrassed to admit that I now have a keen knowledge of Virginia Woolf’s sex life. Eurgh. And of course it’s relevant to my topic, so I also have to present it to my class. Double-eurgh. I already feel bad for the audience.
It just seems like everything about her life was just sad. She had a good marriage but had lots of bad friendships, had no children, and suffered frequent bouts of depression and mental breakdowns. In the end she put a big rock in her pocket and walked into a river to drown. Her suicide note is absolutely tragic. (Of course that had to go into the presentation too. Man, this is gonna be one happy project!)
At one point in my morning, I needed to take a break from the doom and gloom. So I drew. This is what I came up with:
Oh, Virginia. You even haunt my doodles.