Dear Fruit,

You're wonderful, and I love you.

Faithfully yours,
RR

Incident Report, Week of 1-13-08

1. Dropped jar of eye cream, which spilled out all over the counter.
2. Dropped container of cranberries, spilling cranberries all over the stove.
3. Tripping going upstairs.
4. Punched self in neck.
5. Spilled coffee in purse.

Wally is Snoring

Wally, who is taking up two-thirds of my chair (the most comfortable two-thirds, at that), is snoring.

It's a good thing he's so cute.



The new semester starts tonight! I'm not excited about it, but going to class is on my to-do list for today, and when I come home, I'll get to cross it off. It's the little things, right, folks?

The Latest Round of Complaints

So, I had made the decision to be a more positive person. This was not a New Year’s Resolution but rather stemmed from two things: (1) I’m tired of being stressed all the time, and if I were more positive, maybe things wouldn’t bother me so much, and (2) believe it or not, some tapes my grandmother gave me that point out how easy it is not to stress about little things. I had been making remarkable progress (for me). But then.

Oh, but then.

Our project for my environmental planning class needed some revisions over Christmas break before we turned the final report in to the group on behalf of which it was written, and the changes need to be made by a certain date (today). I spend a very large chunk of my break making changes to the thing because the majority of my teammates couldn't be bothered. Never mind the fact that they PLAGIARIZED (as it turns out, it was more than one person using that particular style of writing). They couldn’t be bothered with the revisions. And as I don’t want to turn in bad work that could get us kicked out of school, I made the changes myself. Two other students on the team (the ones who didn’t plagiarize) said they would help but were in reality only a tiny bit of help.

I’m having some unkind, very unpositive thoughts about two certain Ph.D. students right now.

Why Am I Still at Work?

I'm going to miss Perry Mason.


Boo.





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Digital camera

JLR and I bought a digital camera (finally), so expect to see a lot more of this:



And by "a lot more," you know I don't mean that I'll be posting more frequently, right? Right. 'Cause you've noticed the infrequent posting. All three of you.

Dear Lia,

As I take an afternoon blog tour, I see from the trail of your comments that you are doing the same. It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one procrastinating.

Yours,
RR
P.S. You'll notice that, unlike you, I'm too lazy to post any comments.

Wally knows how to negotiate.

Wally and I had a stand off the other day.

He wanted me to share my tuna with him. I set it down on top of my printer for a moment while getting my study things together. He jumped on my desk and headed straight for my bowl. When I told him "no," he dutifully turned around from my bowl...and then sat down.

On my book. The one that I needed to study.




Here's a close-up of his game face.



As you can see, the desk is a mess. There was no way to extricate the book with Wally causing everything else on my desk to go tumbling down.

He is a skilled negotiator, that cat.

Tij = AiBjOiDjdij-b

And also, Sij = ΣiCiAjFj^aDij-b = ΣiSij.

I miss my theory classes.

Can't I just write another paper?

Sigh.

Back to the flashcards.

Sij = ΣiCiAjFjaDij-b = ΣiSij

Thinking + Tired = Not Really Thinking After All

It's 1 A.M., and I still have a lot of work to do before I can go to bed so I can get up (later) in the morning and study some more. My lips are chapped, and I'm staring at a tube of chapstick that jlr left on my desk, wondering if she'd mind if I used it. And then I realize that it's my chapstick; it's the chapstick that Hils sent me as part of my finals care package. And I think, "Oh."

It's still wrapped. Too much effort to unwrap. Bummer.

Does anyone remember what I was going to look up online?




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Dear Deals, Tell Me If This Sounds Familiar

We had to do a group project in one of my planning classes. There's a woman in my group who, while she seemed really nice at first, managed to be remarkably unhelpful to the project. We had to ask her repeatedly for the information she was supposed to supply to the group. When she missed the scheduled "exchange information so we can compile one report" date by a week, and when we asked her for the information for what was, I don't know, the third or fourth time (AND THE LAST TIME WAS ON THE DAY BEFORE OUR PAPER WAS DUE), she acted like she didn't know what we were talking about. And then when she did get it to us, it was unusable. And then when we didn't use much of her work in the final project, she got mad at us and scheduled a meeting with our professor to lodge a complaint. Not so nice after all.

Sound like anyone you have to work with, Deals?

Stood Up

A classmate and I have to interview people who provide cultural programming at places that might not be thought of as cultural resources (ex., churches that have dance groups). We had an interview with a senior community that has a choir. It had taken a bit of finangling to get this interview, as the interviewee didn't seem particularly interested in our project, but we needed this interview, by golly, so I persisted. We set an interview date and time. On the correct day, at the correct time, my classmate and I drove the 30 minutes to the interview site, walked in, and said that we were there to see [interviewee's name]. The person who greeted us said, "I'm sorry she's on vacation this week."

Picture me flabbergasted.

Finals Time. Yea.

In case you were wondering why I've been posting even less than usual, it's because finals are right around the corner. I have a project due Monday. The next week, I have an exam on Monday, a project due on Tuesday, an assignment due Thursday, and an exam due on Thursday. Somewhere in that time frame, I need to squeeze in about 6 interviews for one of my projects. The only one I've really started working on is the project due on Monday. The other project has me a little bit nervous because (a) it should be around 30 pages, which would be no big deal except we've only got about, oh, two pages done so far and (b) it's a group project, and two of my teammates are slackers. They're slackers, people. It's been like pulling teeth just to get them to do the work they've done so far, and I don't have time to hold their hands. Only I have to hold their hands because group project = group grade. If they do a bad job, I get a bad grade. Sigh.
And if you think I've complained a lot so far, wait 'til it gets a bit closer to the due date. There will be much more complaining. It's my finals coping mechanism (which reminds me, I need more coffee).

Also, on Thanksgiving, I helped make the gravy, and I dropped the whisk. It splattered gravy on my left shoe and pants leg. Mom laughed. A lot. Also, I ate half an apple pie. And two bags of peanut butter cups.

My Favorite Quote from Today

" Moving too slow to be measured by the eye of man, the Great Meat Glacier pushed inexorably south."

(featured in the Meat! Meat! Meat! Part 2 section on one of my favorite websites)




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Oh, Yuck

No time to wash my hair. Must meet with professor. Hope meeting is short enough that I can sneak away and do the reading assignment for his class this afternoon. Plus, must make flyers for GIS day. Also, not panicking about trying to squeeze in 9 interviews with arts people before the end of the semester. Not panicking about the amount of work I have left to do before finals.

Okay, that's not true. I am panicking.

And my hair stinks.




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Apparently, I Can't Do Very, Very Simple Math

And in other news, my planning techniques & administrative analysis mid-term exam is now over.




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So Good

Misarang Hatsal Rice Crackers....mmmm.......



And these are the ones I overate yesterday:

Bleh

Tongue dry. Ate too many rice cookies. Talking difficult. Tongue very, very dry. Bleh.




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All Right. Who Was It?

Now, I'm not saying that someone--some invisible someone--drank my coffee. I'm just saying that there isn't as much coffee in my mug as I think there ought to be, and I didn't drink it.


So who was it?


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Incident Report, the past few days

1. Failed to clear doorway
2. Punched self in jaw with box from Target
3. Knocked glasses askew with car door
4. Bumped head on door
5. Dropped roll of paper towels on floor
6. This one I can't remember, but that may have something to do with the fact that I keep hitting my head.