My Journal

20:29 Awoke at 8:30 and spent the first ten minutes of the day coughing painfully and blowing my nose. I went to the bathroom once my body settled down a bit and on the way back glanced at the Health Center posting, which said that the doctor was in M-F, 8-8:45. I had five minutes to race over there, which wasn't going to happen, especially in my state. So I just crawled back into bed with a book and did some reading until 9:50. By then I was feeling well enough to not call in sick to this psych study I had signed up for yesterday, so I went over there and took the study, which didn't last long. And they gave me a cookie.

After I got back from the study, I stayed in bed until lunchtime with Mollie and Barb. Reading, again, even though I should have been doing math, but I didn't feel like hacking through algebra. Went to lunch and had two glasses of tea and one of watered-down juice (as well as a little food), after which I went back to my room, finished the book and finally started on my math. After a while, I ordered pizza for the four of us, took a shower while we waited for it to arrive, then ate while watching A Fish Called Wanda. Everyone liked it, even Ann and I who had already seen it. That was fun. Then I came back here, typed a bit and reset my music. Soon again I shall start my homework. Sigh. The good news? I looked up bronchitis on the net, and I prolly don't have it, just a cold.

13:04 Just got back from lunch. Ann and Jamie went to Downer, but there's really no point in going to Downer for lunch when you can go to Lucinda's unless you have some driving reason, such as knowing that the food at Lucinda's will suck or that Downer is serving the one thing you like for lunch there. My apologies to her, but Jamie is not a driving reason. Got done early in part because we got there early for some reason, and the people I was sitting with aren't the sort to linger over much. Barb had eaten early, Ann went to Downer and I couldn't find Mollie, so I ate with Dan instead.

Eating with Dan was kind of depressing. Not because he's depressing, just because it shows me how narrow and closeted my life is becoming, and proves that I really need to work on my socialization skills. Especially my conversation skills. I have a theory that part of the reason Will really likes Mollie and not me so much (aside from the fact that they both love outdoor sports like snowboarding) is that Mollie's interesting to talk to and you can actually have good conversations with her. This is reflected in my non-social life as well, because it seems like I'm less social than I used to be there too, and I think that's a reflection of my lack of real social life. Damn. I need to get out more.

Still didn't get our rewrites back from Professor Jordan, but she had our midterms for us. I did passably well, I guess... 84. For me, from her, I consider that a decent grade. It wasn't the A I was hoping for and needed, though, and so the only thing that might save me in that class is getting a full A in participation. That, and a damn fine critical essay of the final book we read. We're talking tutoring at least twice, which means (shudder) revision. Ugh. But I need the A! I should also try to excel on the final, but that will probably end up as some sort of B as well, knowing Professor Jordan's notion of my writing ability. Sigh. WSS.

I miss my easy classes from last term. Off I go to abstract algebra.

21:20 Went to Mollie's room for a bit, then left when she went to her Theta meeting. Still, half an hour of socialization is better than no socialization, so the 15 minutes I spent there was "worth it". Kind of like what Stefan told me on Valentine's Day... and which Dan repeated almost word-for-word in his blog. So I guess it must be true. But unfortunatly Dan doesn't code his own page so the archives don't stay constant, or I would link to them here.

So Mollie just came in wanting to use my calculator again, and when she was done, for some reason I showed her my coin collection. 'Twas fun, I guess... and it reminded me that I really need to get a couple more organizer sheets, otherwise I'll keep losing coins, which will be in no way good.

Anyway... Mollie left and came back and left again... still need to e-mail Holly asking to at least know what's going on. And Erin stopped in and said hi, and Grace came in with my blanket, so I have all my stuff from this weekend now. Now I just need to write up my lecture notes, and then I can go to bed. I think.

Awoke suddenly out of a dream. Looked at my clock, which read 9:53. It took almost ten full seconds before I calculated that 9:50, when my class starts, comes before 9:53. Once this was realized, I leapt out of bed with no small amount of cursing and rushed to get dressed. Fortunately I had anticipated having not much time (although I hadn't expected to actually wake up late, just with not much time to get ready and go to class), so my clothes were all laid out for me (except socks. I had forgotten socks.), all my books were in my backpack, I had even packed breakfast I was so ready for this. So I grabbed all my stuff and high-tailed it over to Briggs. I must say I made fairly good time, though I wasn't running. I arrived at 10, and since I left at 9:56... you do the math.

Our class has a glass back wall, so you can see into it from the hallway (and see into the hallway from the room as well). I saw no one in there. My first reaction was to think through what day it was and re-check the time to make sure I wasn't an hour early or anything like that. But no, this was the right time. My next reaction was that they had gone on a field trip somewhere, to another classroom perhaps. I despaired at this, because if they had there was no chance that I could find them. I turned the corner, hoping that there would be a sign on the door saying where everyone had went. Fortunately for me, there was, in a sense.

Mr. Azzi is ill today. Econ 10/100 is cancelled.

After I saw that sign I decided to call Ann, perhaps to sit and chat with her for a while but mostly just to complain about my alarm clock and ask her advice on the situation. I called her room a couple times before deciding that she must either be in Main Hall or the library. Main Hall being closest, I went there first.

Ann was right where I expected her to be, and I approached her while uttering an exasperated sigh. She looked up at me and informed me that class was cancelled, but if I hadn't known that, what would I be doing in Main Hall? Minor logic failure there, I guess. Both computers in that room were in use so I came into the lab next door. While I was waiting for my computer to log me in, I went back there and asked how she found this boy Dan's webpage. She showed me, but kept repeating that the link was broken. This I knew, but I was planning to use my l33t sk1llz to see if I could find anything. I couldn't- his page had been taken down entirely. Sigh. Once I finished with that I came here and wrote all this. Now I'm going to go show it to Ann.

I'm planning to start an anime club here on campus. Huzzah!

25:35 It's 1:35 am and I'm wide awake still. Probably had something to do with the excessively late hour at which I went to bed last night. Though I'm usually still up now anyway, just not usually this... perky. I did add a new link today, although it's to a syndicated comic, whereas I normally endorse only webcomics. The reason for posting this is explained on the- What's that? You've never seen any sort of endorsement for these webcomics? Well here you go:

GO READ ALL THOSE PRETTY WEBCOMICS FOR WHICH I SO PAINSTAKINGLY ADDED BANNERS! THEY'RE FUNNY AND BETTER THAN MOST OF THAT PC DRIVEL THEY PRINT IN THE NEWSPAPERS!

Anyway... I know I really need to update, and it's not even so much that I've been busy as just haven't really thought about or gotten around to doing this. But I'm here now, and typing, and besides only three of you read this anyway, so what's it matter?

So. After I left off this morning I went to Freshman Studies. We did not get our midterms back, so we spent most of the time discussing Notes From the Underground. (As I write I'm sorting my music, trying to figure out what's really techno and what isn't, and if it isn't, what the hell is it? Maybe I need a "rock&roll" file as well.) For some reason, people didn't get that this guy is Russian, and of course he's going to complain. A few people also miss out on the fact that he argues with himself, and try to pass of the "arguments against himself" as contradictions, when really he's just providing the other side of the argument, so he can then attack it. Oh, and we got candy from Professor Jordan, just 'cause (you didn't read that, Mollie!).

After class I went to lunch at Lucinda's. Chinese- not that great, I mostly had wonton soup. As did Mollie. And we got there late, so of course the line was atrociously long. But that didn't matter so much, because obviously we didn't eat very much so we didn't need as much time for lunch. Afterwards I ran off to math, where we got our HW back (61, an improvement from last time, but still godawful) and then did a whole bunch of examples of non-isomorphic homomorphisms. Dull.

After class I went back to my room and enqued a bunch of techno songs. Gosh, that perked me up. I turned the volume up and sat on my bed while I did the crossword puzzle. Also mangaged to (finally) fill out my Overload Reasons sheet. Went down to the lobby at 4 and tutored Lisa, and while she worked through problems I wrote a note to Mollie, which I then Campus Mailed to her. Came back up to my room and IM'd a few people, including my sister who I naturally got into a weird conversation with. Went to dinner at 6:15 with Ann. We joined Josie Boyle who was going through dessert (cereal) as we arrived. Both of us opted for pizza, which is never that great, and a little pasta. It was the "butterfly/bowtie" pasta, and as I was eating it I tried to think of the name, the real name, for it. For some reason I kept wanting to call it "forelle" or something along those lines. It wasn't until now that it finally came to me- it's penne. Sigh. I felt so uncultured because I had forgotten. Had a depressing conversation with Ann because her good friend's mom has cancer and it seems like the latest news is that death is inevitable, where before there was at least a glimmer of hope. I tried to change the subject by talking about my sister's problems (guy trouble) which allowed me to digress into a listing of all the weird things we said to each other. So by the time we left it was pretty good. Oh, and as we were leaving I saw David Scott and just HAD to tell him Mollie's silly stress story. He and Ann both laughed, and David said that alone made his day.

After dinner I went to Mollie's room and watched My Neighbor Totoro, which seems to be one of those "classic" animes, kind of like Akira. I say that because four completely dissimilar people have made references to it, which doesn't necessarily mean that they themselves have seen it, but at least they know what a Totoro looks like and are aware of the film. Definitely aimed at the younger viewers, but Mollie and I both liked it well enough, I think, as long as we remembered to lower our standards. (Oh yeah, Mollie came in when I was 20 minutes into the movie and decided to skip whatever she was doing for the rest of the night, and joined me in watching it.)

After that I came back to my room and did a whole lot of nothing. I would have gone to frisbee (yea verily, should have) but it was all cold and snowy out and the rec center is so far away and whine whine whine.

Also tried to organize my music. WSS how that goes. Oh, and Danny might be getting me a Seven Layers Deep CD, 'cause he still has some left. Of course, we still have to figure out HOW he's going to get it to me since he's in Mpls and I'm in Appleton. WSS.

26:18 Ah yes. Forgot to mention- I finally got the web address for Dan Holbrook's blog. It's at http://www.brainerd.net/~holbrook/ . Take a look. I'm mentioned in there. ^_^

Nothing much to update, except that I'm considering putting something here for Mollie that I don't feel comfortable asking her in person, but if I want her to read it, why put it here? Why not e-mail her? Maybe because with e-mail she could just e-mail me back, whereas if she read it here it would be delayed... Argh! I don't know. I guess I'll just forget it.

Watched two movies with Ann over the weekend, and put up ratings on my movies page. Here's a quick review of each: Big Night- Good movie, great shots of making food. Not a lot happens, though, but that's okay 'cause it's sort of an "art" film. Dreamlife of Angels: Also an "art" film. Very good, more like what would appear all over in American theaters though. I liked it quite a bit.

That having been said, Mollie O'Mara is a filthy, filthy slut!

Just kidding... I love you Mollie! I really do! I just know you're going to read this at some point, and when you do, I'll laugh.

Anyway... after I got over the initial shame of having offended Debi (and I really felt bad about it, I really like Debi), she did concede that some of the Yuais present less than the perfect model of what the Yuais are supposed to be about. And I guess I did confuse them by coming to their trivia party, because I didn't make it clear to them that I was coming FOR the trivia party and not because of a special desire to be with them. But Debi did explain that they are life family to her regardless, even if she does seem to wish there were a more wholesome element to the group.

Anyway, aside from that.... got called at 9 by April, and then a minute later by Ann. Which was a good thing, because I most definitely did not hear my alarm clock. Got up at 9:30, cleaned and dressed myself and went off to my econ exam. I had put two juice boxes and a granola bar in my bag before I went to bed, so I had my apple juice during that exam. Boy, it tasted good. The exam wasn't really what I expected- a lot of analysis- but I think I got through it okay. I did understand the concepts pretty well, I thought, so I should be alright. But I won't know until next Wednesday.

I got done with that on time- not early, not late, just on time- and went upstairs to Freshman Studies. On the way and before class started I ate my granola bar. During the test I had my fruit punch juice box- not as wonderful as the apple juice, but I was less thirsty then as well, and less in need of the sugar it provided. When Professor Jordan came in and gave out the tests, I felt fairly confident of my knowledge, and when I got the test I discovered my confidence was well-founded. I knew the answers to all the short essay questions, and was able to articulate them (I hope). I also felt confident about the second long essay- I had the perfect 5-paragraph format all laid out, and thought I had coherent enough points. My concern is with the first long essay I wrote, because it was only a page long and had three paragraphs to the whole thing. The problem is, I couldn't think of anything more to say on the subject- I thought I had covered it all. But as with the econ exam, I won't know how I did until next Wednesday.

After the exam (which I finished ten minutes early) I went to lunch, but because it was all blustery I decided to go through Science Hall and use the buildings between there and Lucinda's as a wind shield. I never left Science Hall, though, because in the atrium I found the fish tank club selling pizza to cover the cost of fish food for the decorative fish they have in the atrium. So instead of having to brave the cold and the wind and walk all the way to Lucinda's and back, I stayed there, had pizza (which I had kind of been craving).

While I was eating I did my math homework, because I knew that there were a few problems I had skipped or set aside to finish later. So I went through, and to my delight I found that I had only done this and not gone back to two problems. One of them I was able to complete decently (though I knew it wasn't right) in less than ten minutes, but the other I couldn't get and couldn't get and still couldn't get. And it was one that I recalled having worked on last night, too, trying to get the problem sets completed. It was frustrating not to be able to get it. At one I gave up and went back into Briggs to the math room. Luckily, Stacy was there so I asked her if there was something she could do to help me without violating Professor Porciau's rules for consulting. She said one little thing and suddenly I realized what I had been doing wrong. It wasn't that I couldn't get the problem for some reason, it was that I had misunderstood what the question was asking. Once she cleared that up, the answer became obvious. This just goes to prove that Professor Porciau was right when he said that once you understand the definitions of things in math, the proofs become almost easy.

When he arrived in the room we turned in our homework, but then spent 15 minutes giggling and talking about random things. He even spent a few minutes to explain topology to us briefly. All this wasted time made me uneasy, since I tend not to think of Porciau as a jovial guy. He did "redeem" himself by assigning us 21 problems to do over reading period, and then we started class, which was all about quotient groups.

I was feeling all happy after class, because I had Sailor Moon songs going through my head all day, thought I did well on both exams and managed to turn in a complete homework set on time. Then I went and picked up my paper from Freshman Studies. Ouch. I did not get a good grade on that, and I'm still a little uncertain why. Not why I didn't get perfect, of course, but why I did so poorly overall. It was really disappointing and upsetting. I did run into Elena afterwards, though, and she said that she had also done really badly, which made me feel a little better. That meant that it wasn't entirely me, but that Professor Jordan is also a harder grader than other professors might be. I also have an A- in participation right now, but given that participation is 20% of our grade and each paper is worth (50/3)% of our grade, that only really serves to bring ONE paper up to a B-, averaged. I do get a chance to rewrite either paper I've written so far, but even if I get 100 on that, I can only really hope to get a B of some sort for the course. And that's if I do fairly well on the midterm and finals. So that made me upset.

I'm not even going to consider what my math grade is right now. I have a good idea, and it's really really depressing, in part because there's even less hope for it than in Freshman Studies. My econ grade is totally dependant on the exams, and I don't know how he'll grade those yet. I should get a good grade in my fourth class based purely on the instructor, but there's still almost 90% of our grade unaccounted for, so that's sketchy, too. It's really frightening, if I think about it. So I won't.

After class I went over to the student activities center and filled out my preferences sheet for the Thetas and turned it in. Now they have to verify that my GPA is high enough, and then decide if they want me or not. The woman there said everything should take about a week; I hope it goes well. Speaking of which, I got an e-mail from mom saying she'd be pleased as punch if either Marth or I ever decided to join them, which also means that she might be more willing than dad to cover the costs of joining them. But WSS about all that.

After class I got my mail, including a present from my grandmother- elegant Japanese incense. Then I went down to Mollie and Barb's room and hung out for a few, ten minutes. I really should stop doing that. Then I came back here and did not much, went to their room again and watched biathalon and filled out my Plantz Hall Survey till 4. I tutored Lisa as much as I could, which didn't seem to be much at all this week. I hope that it was in part because she didn't have a lot of homework or questions, but I also didn't seem to be able to help her that much at all, and I felt really bad about it. Regardless of why, she left at 4:40, which left me a lot of extra time. Although it could have been my clock...

I went to Mollie's room again to ask about dinner. She seemed reluctant to talk about it, and we danced around the subject for a few minutes until she finally said, as if it was just occuring to her, "Oh, I said I'd meet Ann for dinner in half an hour." Maybe it did just occur to her. I don't know, but I hope that's what it was. She said she was going to go take a shower before dinner, and that she'd come get me when she was ready to leave. Forty-five minutes later I grabbed my jacket and hat and went down to her room. She wasn't there, nor was she in the bathroom, so I just went to dinner by myself. I found her and Ann easily enough, and she seemed sorry that she had forgotten to come get me. Maybe she really had forgotten and really was sorry. I just don't know.

Dinner was pretty darn good- they had some kind of fish that was actually flavourful and that I liked, and I had a slice of watermelon for dessert that was pretty good, not too mushy, not too hard and unripe. (I've given up desserts (well, nonliquid sweets) for lent, or at least until I go to Georgia.) After dinner Mollie and Ann went off to church and I went back to Plantz. I l33ch'd some music until 7:20 when I headed off to usher. Unfortunately I failed to realize that the time was by my stupid computer's clock, which as I said before tends to loose 7 minutes a day. So I wasn't exactly later, but I got there a few minutes after 7:30 instead of a few minutes before. It was an easy job again- hand out programs, make sure no one disturbed the performance by coming in during the first peice, the usual. Then I came back here, IM'd a few people and l33ch'd some more music, then went to Mollie's room and watched Star Wars with them. It got over at midnight and then I came back here. Now I shall go shower and sleep.

22:47 Just got back from an ushering scheduling meeting. I'll be working another three times this term, which means another $20 or so. Yay men's snowboarding! Gold silver and bronze, go USA. Also kind of really want to join the thetas now. But dad said no. Grrr. WSS what happens.

I have decided, based upon my inability to write properly, either papers or this journal, that I hate Linux and want Windows back.

After lunch I went over to Riverview for the health fair, which I thought was going to be huge and elaborate and stuff but it really wasn't. It was just sort of like those fitness tests you took in gym class all the time, except you weren't graded and it didn't suck as much. They just made you do step arobics for three minutes and took your pulse, tested your blood pressure, counted how many sit-ups and push-ups I could do in X time and they also had this machine that determined % body fat. I have less than the average body fat for my age, so I'm happy. And I'm fairly fit- yay frisbee workouts! And if I went regularly I would be really fit, which is awesome. That might happen someday soon, maybe, possibly.

After that I came back to Plantz and parked in the computer lab to write my paper for Globalization. I don't think it was all that bad. I printed it and went upstairs to fetch Barb, but she was having printer problems and told me to leave without her. So I did. Class was interesting enough, I guess- we talked about debt and what happens to countries that get into it. And Professor Alghren explained selling short in a way that I understand, which dad didn't.

After class I went upstairs to call Ann and see if she wanted to go to a lecture with me. She didn't, but there was this guy hanging around waiting for Math Tea to start that asked what the lecture was on, and when I told him he seemed interested and decided to come with.

24:37 I just started reading this webcomic called 8-bit Theater. It's hilarious, in part because it makes fun of the old RPGs I used to play on our NES, like Dragon Warrior and the early Final Fantasy games. I love it, and as soon as I get a bit more time and find the link banner, I'm adding it to my list of links.

19:37 I'm actually going to one of the Theta COB events. One more and they give me a bid, if they want me... Gasp!

23:46 So the Theta party both was and was not fun. It was at the start 'cause we were just making valentines and Julia seemed really excited to have me there, but then we tried to get the movies working and it didn't work so well and then some people spent a lot of time trying to hook up the DVD player or the VCR, and finally a girl, Jamie, said that it would be easiest to try and do the VCR. So she tried that, and then when everyone else gave up (all both of them) I gave it a try. I tried one thing, and it didn't work. Then I tried another thing, and that didn't work and it kept not working and not working and grrr! and they told me to give up but I didn't give up, 'cause I'm l33t and KNEW I could get it. So I peeked at the diagram in the instructions and went "duh," plugged something in, turned on the TV and there was the movie! Yay me, I so l33t! So then we watched Sixteen Candles until 10, when I left for frisbee.

Frisbee was a lot of fun. I missed the whole running-around-the-track bit, but was there for the exercizing runs, where we did running with leg lifts and sidesteps and crossovers and skipping and things like that. Those weren't bad. Then we did Super Sevens (gah!) and then went down and did drills. That was all right because it wasn't horrible and I practiced quite a bit, which was good. And then we scrimmaged, I went and got a bottle of soda and then came back here. I did nothing really productive here- I meant to write a globaliz. paper, but I can do that between 12 and 2 tomorrow as well, so it's not VITAL I do it now. Oh, and I did lend Steve my econ notes which was productive in an indirect way, so I can feel proud about doing that. Soon I shall go to bed, and get up and do maybe more Theta things. WSS.

Oh yes, dad also sent me this link about internships, 'cause Mairs and Powers doesn't do them specifically, so I'd have to look for one on my own. The link gave me NO internships aside from nonprofit work in MN, which is no good for me. So I have to go back to the career center here, but my only concern is that they would be more focused on Chicago-area jobs and internships, or even Milwaukee/Madison, and that won't be as helpful. But there's always this huge network of Lawrence alums to call on and see what they can do, and there's got to be no small number of them in the Twin Cities.

22:00 Mmmmm.... E3.....

22:28 Woke up at 8:30 and went to econ, even though I really liked being in bed. Survived class (I really like econ though) and then went and had a short meeting with Professor Jordan. She was very polite about not saying that my paper sucked, even though I know full well that it did. She basically told me to go to the writing lab and get them to help me, and not to make it suck so much next time.

When I got out of there I went over to Coleman and looked at my econ notes for a little bit. A very little bit. Then I took a bit of a nap, but only a bit of one because Ann woke me up, having arrived. We were supposed to study together, but there wasn't a lot we could study and we mostly just ended up talking about random things that we usually talk about. Then we went to lunch, where they had leek and potato soup which was good and some other stuff that was not so good. It was just the two of us but then three of the Yuais came over and sat with us, and Gypsy (the one of them whose name I know) said "We couldn't see your blue hair because of the sunlight," which indicates to me that they were looking for me, and I don't think that's necessarily a good thing... I think I encouraged them by going to their Trivia Party. Perhaps not the best idea. But we were almost finished as they arrived, so we didn't stay long fortunately. However, as we were walking out, Mollie and Damaris walked in, so I went back in with them and had a brownie and milk while they ate lunch.

I left with them and went back to Plantz (no mail again today) and looked at some AD&D stuff. But I got bored with that, so I did random things about my room until two, when I went to Barb's room and we left for class. Globalization was interesting, but by the end I had to go really really really badly, and it didn't help that the professor kept talking 5 minutes over the alloted time. I mean, I enjoyed hearing what he had to say, but I had to use the bathroom, now which kind of made me unappreciative of the last little bit.

After class I came back to my room and tried to do more workish stuff for a good 45 minutes, but then gave in and took a nap. Problem was, I overslept by 20 minutes and met Ann, Mollie and Barb for dinner half an hour late. They didn't mind overmuch, and I didn't eat all that much so we could all leave at the same time. Mollie and Ann went off to the library and Barb and I went off to the globalization lecture. And that brings me back to where I came in earlier tonight, so I'll stop.

8:32 After econ (we got out 10 minutes early) we went to the freshman studies lecture. It wasn't exactly funny, but it wasn't boring enough that I started to nod off, which is a really good sign. The only thing worth recounting, though, was when he put up a graph (mislabeled) and then told us that it was really the number of occurences of the word "paradigm" in this book we're reading (the author spreads it around the page like so much butter sometimes). I (and most everyone else) thought it was funny. Then we went to lunch.

I went to lunch with Mollie in Downer, and we were joined by Davis, and then Luke, then Ed and this guy named Quinnn that I didn't know, though I knew all the others. I don't know how we got onto the subject, but someone mentioned that Al seemed to be involved in almost every single organization on campus, which bizarrely enough seems to be true. On top of that, whenever anyone sees him he's just chilling- people rarely see him studying (like, someone might see it happen once a term). And it's not like he closest himself in his room and studies a lot, because he's almost always hanging out somewhere, ALL DAY. I don't even get it. That's impressive.

After lunch I went to math. Got my homework back, and I did really badly on it. Worse than before. But I was kind of expecting that. Now I have to see if I can buckle down and get enough work done on this week's to get most of it done with enough time to ask questions on it. And then class itself seemed to go by fairly quickly- I didn't glance at the clock nearly as much as I normally do.

After class I tried doing homework in Briggs for half an hour, but I couldn't even prove the first problem. And do you know how it feels, when you can't do homework and it somehow makes you tired to keepp trying when you fail, but when you get it you're just so excited and can keep going for a long time? Well, seeing as I was unsuccessful... I went back to my room and took a nap, setting my alarm for 4:30.

Now, I know I woke up at 4:30 and can remember thinking, "Oh, I have a few minutes to lie here in bed, and I can still get to Laura's room by 5." Next time I looked at the clock, it was 5:12. I called Laura to apologize and said I would be right over, threw on some clothes and my jacket and hurried over to Draheim. I met the campus coordinator person, Linda, who I naturally assumed was an on-campus person that was part of the Activities Office or something. So when I casually mentioned some abreviation about something on campus, she got confused, and then I got confused, and then Laura had to explain that no, this was someone from Green Bay that served all the colleges in Wisconsin and anywhere else near enough to get into contact with. Ooops. I thought we were just going to have a talk in Laura's room, or go somewhere on campus and be done in half an hour or so, and then I would go back to my room and do nothing for the rest of the night since I was so full I thought I would skip dinner. But no, this woman planned on taking us out to dinner, which was nice of her but I was already so full anyway... But eating off-campus is nice any time, so off we went.

We had a really great conversation once we were there about what we could do to increase awareness on campus, and Laura and I both had some ideas of how to do that. And we talked a little about other things, but mostly just that. Dinner was really great, too, and then we went back to LU, where I did nothing for a long time, went to the last part of a hall council meeting, looked for Tanya who wasn't home and filled out a bunch of evaluations that had been sent to me the week before. Now it's 9:30 and I have to run to frisbee, if I feel like it. And I really really should, 'cause I know I'm not going to get any homework done. Off I go!

In other news, I went to the con today and filled out my payroll sheet from last week, which means I get slightly less than $20 next week. But that's $17.50 or so that I didn't have (and since I also went and withdrew $20 today, that's really a net gain of -$5. Oh well.) Also went and bought ice cream, only to find that the (one-pint) container doesn't fit in my fridge. And that my computer clock was 15 minutes slower than my alarm clock, and I had scynchronized them not two days ago. Odd.

So anyway. After I found that by taking the lid off the ice cream it mostly fits (enough to count, anyway) and doing the crossword for a while, I went off to intermural bowling. I got a 56 and 93, which were average-ish for me and pretty good, respectively. And I was on a team with happy fun people that I like, which was also good. After we got back I went straight to dinner (we got back at 6:30). I didn't see Ann anywhere, and Mollie and Barb had gone to Barb's for the weekend. Jamie and Megan were there, though, so I sat with them and ate and talked until 7. When I got back to my room I called Ann, who it turns out had slept through dinner. She encouraged me (and encouraged me) to go to the jazz concert with her tonight, and I relented and said I would. I typed this and listened to a little music (Chocobo mixes, mostly) until she arrived and then we went off to the concert.

Mollie and Barb's door is locked. I wonder if that's just for security reasons, except that last week they were both away and Mollie gave me the keys. Then I took her computer out and caused her a lot of trouble and stress that she neither needed nor wanted nor deserved. So I guess it's a sort of punishment/lack of any more trust sort of thing, which kinda disheartens me, and makes me really regret what I did last week and how it affected our relationship. Sniff.

24:31 When I got back to my room I saw an IM from Allen saying "I'm in trouble" that was linked to something. Now, I had to go to the bathroom really really badly by the time I reached my room, so I couldn't click on it right away. So I started worrying that maybe he was depressed or had broken up with Katie or even worse, had been dumped by her, or that somthing had happened. I worry about Allen sometimes- he's one of those sensitive people that, while not easily hurt, are hurt badly when they are. Or so it seems to me. So of course then I start panicking and thinking that it's something REALLY bad. Then I realized that if it was, a) he wouldn't have told me and b) he would have called, or Jenny or Cody or someone would have. But that only served to make me MORE upset, because I hadn't thought to check my phone messages. So of course when I got back to my room I was in a right state- I picked up the phone and checked my messages as I walked over to the computer and clicked on the link. One message, from on campus- nothing dire. Good. Then the link came up and it turns out he had just read the article about how vibrating video game controllers could cause problems. AUUUGHHH!! He got me all worked up over that? Methinks someone needs to be bitch-slapped for it.

But on to happier things. That was the last that happened since I updated earlier this evening, the first being that Ann came over and we went to the jazz ensemble concert together (I went to a concert at the chapel- I could have ushered for that and gotten paid to see a concert I went to anyway! Damn!). It was great- all Big Band music, which is my favorite kind of jazz, I think. Then we came back to Plantz and called Ann's room so she could ask her roommate if it was OK if we watched a movie over there. It was, so we went over to Trever by way of the Grill, since Ann (who had missed dinner due to a nap) was hungry and wanted something to eat. So we got ice cream bars and juice and went to Trever. We watched American Beauty, which was a stunning film and really made me think about certain things. Granted, they probably weren't the things the director wanted me to think about by watching that movie, and it's not likely they were things most other people were thinking, but it was thought-provoking nonetheless. Just to give you some idea- I was laughing in all the wrong places at all the stuff I thought was funny. Not that I thought of the film as a comedy, just that certain things in there were silly and wonderful in a kind of childish/Helen-ish sort of way. But it's one of those stories that you would consider more of a "film" than a "movie" no matter how you look at it, unless of course you hated it. When it was over we discussed the film a little, pointed out things the other had missed, etc, and then I came back here. Soon I shall go to bed, with all luck.

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