School has been tripping along nicely. I'm (mostly) enjoying my classes.

I'm very happy about the UH listserve this year. Usually, I get a lot of information that is useless to me. However, there have been great job opportunities posted that I have passed on to people who need them. Most importantly, I heard about a communications internship through the Honors College listserve and have been accepted as an intern for UH's Collegium magazine. (Many thanks to Coordinator Kent Baxter and Karleen Koen!) I'm both excited and apprehensive about the whole thing.

More on my profs and classes this semester:

• Dr. Musburger seems to have undergone a personality change. Either that or he behaves differently in each class. I remember I was scared of him when Broadcast/Film Writing first started last semester. He's really goofy in the class that I have now.
• Dr. Babcock is wonderful. She's also very goofy.
• Psych of Human Sexuality can be surreal. It feels odd to have Prof. Mikalsen teach from various diagrams of human sexual anatomy while they are grotesquely enlarged by an overhead projector.
• Prof. Hite is fun. Sometimes, the best professors are the ones who actually do work in the subject they're teaching. I'm also so glad that my high school prepared me for Adobe Photoshop. Not all my classmates are so lucky.
• Film Appreciation is soooo dull. It's partly because the class is three hours long, but I really wish Dr. Hawes would speak a bit faster.

Now, for the rant. Sunday's Garfield comic prompted a whole thinking episode from me. That makes me sound like I never think. Nevertheless, it occurred to me that being a cashier at a grocery store must be far worse than simply working retail. I especially feel for the clerks working in the express lanes, where the customers are required to have a certain number of items or fewer. I cannot imagine how many people try to slip in an extra item, just in one day. The clerks must go through that constantly...and I cringe to think that some of those customers must try it repeatedly. Come on, people. Follow the rules.

I think the problem may stem from some companies or the cashiers themselves. I know a few employees would probably let an extra item through to be nice. My guess is that I'm not the "nicest" cashier. If someone wants to buy something but is short a penny, I don't offer my own money. My justification for my stinginess is simply that I would have to offer money to everyone who is a little short--and that's not fair to me. My food allowance is $4 per week.

(Okay, it's unfair of me to claim that. My mother keeps trying to give me more money because she thinks I'm not eating. However, I've found that I can make $20 last about 5 weeks, so I'm hoping to keep that up.)

I met the Hash Brown Goal long ago--still collecting for it, though.

Helen