commotiocordis

You know what bothers me? The fact that I've never really been good at anything.

Ironic!LOL, Alexandria's melancholy when she's 28 hours from failing an organic chemistry test she can't get her stupid ass to study for and has slept weirdly (and by weird, I mean in 2 hour bursts with a very low total hour count) all week. It's 5am, which is probably the reason, though I've never found myself unable to allow the slightest stimuli to throw me into ". . . I fail" mode no matter what time of the day it is.

( Wherein I mope and act all juvenile and emo while espousing how I fail. )

I am so much in love with Lucy Saxon. Her character in Doctor Who has just totally captivated me. I mean, she's so conflicted and just. . . bloody interesting And I thought so even before my dad pointed out her picking up the ring at the end--the way they framed that shot, it looked like one of the Doctor's flashbacks or something to me at first, so I didn't really pay attention. That just makes her so much fun to play with. (Perhaps even more so if you take into account the commentary that says perhaps she=Rani. Which doesn't mean a whole lot to me except AWESOME TIME LORD BABE that forces timecocksquared to work together in the past, since I've only read the wiki article, but still.) She's almost your classic victim of intimate partner violence there at the end--you see marks and such on her that I'm pretty sure we're meant to think are the Master hitting her when he doesn't get enough of messing with the Doctor and the Joneses and killing Jack. Explains why she said the Doctor's name with everybody, but then sort of came back to him by picking up the ring from the funeral pyre.

But why wouldn't that be enough for the Master, the Joneses and the Doctor and killing Jack and making everybody else watch while he kills Jack just to freak them out, etc? It makes you ponder the Master as well, because he gets to kill Jack as much as he wants. He's wiping out the human race mostly because for whatever reason, they're the ones that the Doctor likes (if the Doctor had latched on to Raxacoricofalipatorious, that'd be the one that the Master was destroying, all just to mess with him, methinks). And yet he still beats up on his wife? Sure, he's all about control through violence, but that seems. . . idk, below the level of the--admittedly, insane--evil genius that he is. It's like you've just pulled off some giant, carefully orchestrated serial killing spree and can go back and do it again whenever you want and yet you detour and take the long way home just to kick the puppy on the third street over. There's no style. Like the Doctor kept saying, "He has a wife!", like. . . why? In the grand scheme of things, everybody else is so much more fun to play with, so why bother with a human?
I'm kind of not satisfied with that explanation just based on the Master's character and how I've puzzled out things thus far. Sure, he picks up Lucy, shows her around the universe enough to addle her brains a bit, tries out the whole human companion thing, uses her respectability to help establish himself on Earth, but as soon as he's got the Doctor, it feels like he should have dropped her like a bad habit. So much of everything that he did was for the Doctor to watch, to mess with his head, and beating Lucy doesn't really hurt the Doctor beyond the amount that seeing any unnecessary violence does, especially because until the end it's not like any of the gang has any excessive sympathy for her.

<-- A while ago, as per usual.


Just got an email from school's financial aid department with the subject line "PRESIDENTIAL SCHOLARSHIP RENEWED FOR 2009-2010"

A. Yeah, because if it weren't, I'd have to march down there and choke a bitch, all the work and stress I put into making sure that was so after microbiology asshattery debacle of fail.
B. When you send all-caps headers like that, my email's (and my) tendency is to send it straight into the spam bin. Srsly? Credibility < 0. If it were "OMG UR SCHOLARSHIP IS GONES!", perhaps caps would be warranted to make sure you took notice. "U DIDN'T FUCK THINGS UP TOO BADLY YET" isn't so much the capslock worthy, IMO.

Oh, and ALEXANDRIA'S FRUGALITY, HERE IS A STORY OF IT. This is making me happy atm. The localish chain grocery Shop N Save (localish in that they are only in a few regions, but are still big enough to be publicly traded and such) had an anniversary thing on Saturday before last with free sodas and hot dogs and chips and such. Which I meant to go to but didn't. But I was in there either that evening or the next, and they had a bunch of coupons from said event still on their customer service counter for 55 cents off of a 12 pack of their brand of soda cans. Grabbed. Not as many as I would have liked, but I didn't want to just nick the whole stack since it was right in front of the store and thus very conspicuous for me to be grabbing a bazillion even though it was late enough that nobody was there. But they figured most people would use them that week Too much explanation for not that good of a story. I grabbed coupon, saved it until the next week when the 12 packs were $2 each, and thus got 12 cans of fake Diet Dr. Pepper for $1.45. And a two-liter of diet orange soda for 60 cents that I'm guzzling atm (though that has nothing to do with the coupon).

I've also been working on a really awesome International Day of Femslash icon, but it's intense because I'm putting little bitty pictures of different fandoms and I've got to get shots that work enough when smallified (100x42) that they're recognizable, you know? I'm afraid that as it stands, I can tell who the pictures feature only because I know who's in them and that everybody else is going to need captions. I'm also rather miffed because I just realized that since I had yet to play with the font of the words (trying to do the main stuff of the pictures and all first and the fiddly bits later), it could have ended up allowing more than 42px on the height. No way I'm going back and redoing every picture, though, because it'd be a matter of recropping all of them--I guess there aren't that many, but the ones that are in there already are in there because they work at 100x42.

Other notes. JULY IS GOING TO BE THE MONTH OF WIN. Torchwood audio dramas on the 1-3rd, Harry Potter movie on the 15th (be prepared for another several page analysis of the suck), Torchwood Children of Earth on the 20th 6th (I thought original plans were to air them on BBC and BBC America on the same days, because it did even better over here in the states than over there. Turns out it's starting the 6th for BBC actual instead, which is a mistake, because those of us in the OMG TORCHWOOD camp will have seen it two weeks before, chances are. Though earlier = better, I know how important ratings are, so I at least would wait two extra weeks if it meant the show killed enough viewership-wise to ensure loads and loads more.)

Sidetrack to watching featurettes on BBC America (since I can't see the ones on BBC actual, fail). The description of one of the bits of an interview: John Barrowman discusses the many powerful tools on Jack's desk and how the impact of these tools is more far-reaching than some of Torchwood initially realize.
Did any one else go OMG TIME AGENT SEX TOYS. Because office/desk shagging is probably the most popular thing in TW fandom, thanks to that little bit in series 2 that made it canon. And I've been reading too much Doctor/Master fic and trying to suppress the urge to go IS IT CAN BE TIMECOCK TIEMS NAO when I get to the good bits.

Gareth David-Lloyd talks (really quietly--you can hear Eve Myles in the background almost louder than him!) in this interview about how we're going to see Ianto's sister and about how Ianto's worried about how his family's going to react because this is his first relationship with a man. He mentions that the fam is almost more okay with it than he is, and I just got this image of the scene: Ianto's all fumbling for the words to introduce Jack to the sister and she just goes "Oh, is this your bloke then, Yan? God, finally!"


Interesting personal note? 48 hour sleep cycle. Seriously, WTF? I'm up for 36 hours, then asleep for about 12. I'm on the third 36 awake through now, and I don't have a problem with it (though if the 12 asleep was 10pm to 10am instead of the other way around it'd make the awake 36 more productive).

Re: Rick Warren. What's next, James Dobson to preform next year's Red Mass? Seriously. Sure, he's not going to be doing anything official in the administration (as far as we know), but this indicates that Warren's got more than a little influence over Obama, which is not a good thing when you consider that according to Wikipedia, this guy has stated that homosexuality is an intolerable, unnatural way of life and thus not a human right, denounced evolution, and compared atheists to Mao, Stalin and Pol Pot.

Got home after exercising and spending hours between Big Lots (where I just took a while), Wal-Mart (where I stood in the express line for 20 minutes, because the cashier kept letting this guy try his denied credit card over and over and fiddling with the computer and such), and then Shop N Save. Got fat free hot dogs at the last, which I didn't realize I'd been missing until I was in bleakone's room last week and her roommate made a veggie dog and my stomach practically did backflips with the longing (as the fat free ones taste similar, prolly because their meat content has been cut down to "has been on the same refrigerated grocery shelf as meat" levels). Reason I went to the other two, though, was looking for an electric warming throw blanket thing for my mom for Christmas. Turns out that Dad had just checked for in-store availability and didn't see that it said that they weren't in stock at our local Wal-Mart, and so assumed that they were, when really it was just that the local one wasn't listed at all because they never carry it.

Grades come out Monday, as they're all due from the teachers before 5pm, I think, Saturday. Which is why a lot of them were pushing up the finals to the week before, as that's earlier than usual for them and they didn't think they could get them all graded that quickly, I suppose. I see it with some of the more populous classes (some kind of psych 101, or my gym class, even though that was all done electronically so there was no physical grading for the final), but my mythology teacher has what, 60 students total? 19 in my class, though that's an honors section, and her other two are more specialized, upper-division (I think one's graduate) courses, so I presume that it'd be the same or less. She only pushed one of hers up, but maybe that one required a more grading-intensive final than ours (which was in the second-to-last time slot of all the finals, I'm fairly sure) did; essays or something.

Anyway, that mythology final was bad. I'm fairly pissed about that. I'd thought (and others had agreed to the point of overtly encouraging me to stop working on the older Ovid stuff during breakfast right before and study Odysseus--LOL, all of a sudden I wonder if that was purposeful) that most of the final would be over the parts of The Odyssey we hadn't been tested over yet, with 50% at most of comprehensive material. Nope. This was the third test that contained Odyssey material (1 & 2 were all Ovid, 3 was half and half, and 4 was all Odyssey and Oresteia), and yet Ovid was easily 80, maybe 90% of it. The only bits of the Trojan War stories (Odyssey, Oresteia) were in a 10 or so question matching section at the bottom of the 4th page of the test, matching names to identities and one "identify the myth in this picture" thing. And Wednesday night, what did I do but finish the Odyssey instead of studying the Ovid myths. So I used to be able to say that I was getting an A in everything but gym. Fairly sure that's no longer the case, as this was a good 25% of my grade that I'd be surprised if I pulled a C on. It's hard, because I know I know most of the stories so if you just prompted me a bit, I would be all "Oh, and then [blah]". It's tough to do the matching then, too, because you can't tell if you recognize these two items as a pair because they go together, or because you just know both stories, or because one's a family member of the name that really fits with the story and that's why you're connecting the two (because everything's intertwined somehow in Ovid--the man's king of "Oh, and speaking of" transitions), etc., if that makes any sense.

Slight oddness tonight. More in my reaction of a perception of weirdness than the actual thing. Was hanging out in the kitchen, fixing one of my newly purchased hot dogs, when I heard my dad talking to Mom's rabbit. Okay. I'm not really a fan of that animal, but whatever. I look around the little island bit that separates the kitchen from the dining room (which is in turn connected to the living room, where the rabbit's cage is), and he's down there next to the cage petting it. It's not that my dad's an unnafectionate fellow, or dislikes animals or whatnot (he championed the original adoption of Rascal as well as probably every other animal we've had in the house save the rabbit), so I'm not sure if I was just projecting my dislike for the rabbit (I'm not sure where that comes from, whether it bit me a few too many times or what, but I'm just not a fan) onto him, but it surprised me. In a very pleasant-surprise sort of way, as it was quite. . . idk, touching. He was uber gentle (I spelled that "gentile" at first, and then went "LOL, Christmas"), and yet I suppose because of his size or whatnot, the rabbit was still scared (I feel like I've written about this situation almost exactly before because I felt the same way then--shall have to peruse my tags and see if I'm not just deja vu-ing). I don't know. It was touching, okay? Something about it being a rabbit, too; I'd see him petting Rascal with no such out-of-place feeling. Maybe it was the combination of rabbit + him having to squat way down to be anywhere near where he could reach the cage on the floor + talking to it (in not a crazy way) that sort of created this dichotomy of rabbit/giant human (saving my mild, occasional feelings of paternal intimidation for future exploration, LOL) that was cool to see.

Too much analysis, way too late at night. Without classes, I've evidently shifted back to my up-all-night cycle within all of two days. CIRCADIAN RHYTHM, WHY ARE YOU BATSHITCRAZY?

Best Facebook group ever I've joined today.
Let's say "That's Republican" instead of "That's gay/retarded/stupid."
And the good part: the tag line.
Because you can't help it if you're gay, retarded, or stupid, but if you're a Republican, that's your own goddamn fault.


Sucked in some spit down the windpipe whilst walking on the treadmill this evening and I'm still v. uncomfortable in that "must cough and get it out" kind of way. Suckage.

Primary cohab is out at a frat party. For srs. Makes me laugh because though I was afraid she (and the other two) were going to be the type, primary is the least of the three that I would expect it from. But she admits that it's out of character and she's really just going for the experience. Which I admit I probably would do too, if just to be able to say that I went to a frat party within a week of starting school, LOL.

Got the schedule switched. I'm freaking psyched up for this Classical Mythology class. How cool is that? It ruins my T/Th system of 8-9:15 am class, 9:30-10:45 am class, go to gym, go to lunch, 1pm class, on Thursdays 2-4 pm lab, go home. Which is not nice, as now gym can't happen (lunch still can, but it's only a 45 minute free block and not worth the bike trip + locking the bike + two flights of stairs + swiping the card + fighting for one of the few treadmills for only half a workout) but I'll put up with it for fabtastic mythology goodness.

Speaking of 8am T/Th class, almost was significantly late for that today. Woke up in the middle of the night because I had to pee, and then ended up checking my email and being up for a good 45 minutes or so, which though seeming quite small a duration was evidently enough to set me off sleep-wise, because I didn't wake up until 7:45 when somebody's alarm went off. Hooray for the bike, tis all I can say. I totally would have been right on time if I didn't have to lock the thing up, but as it was, I was only a minute or two late. Ace for that. Considering it's not an inconsiderable ride, plus I had to get dressed and find my shoes and grab my helmet and wheel the bike out of my room down 8 floors in the elevator first, I'm quite impressed.

LOL. I am finally, finally done with this independent investigations stuff. (Edit: Though sources on this leftover paper I did tonight? Cited they are not. A lot of it is anecdotal, and what's not I detailed the source of in the text, so I shouldn't get away with it but I might.) Save printing out the bits I did today and putting it all together, that is, as I've got no paper at the moment and need to find a hole puncher capable of doing 60-65 pages not one at a time. The LOL was for my cheapness, as I've been passively pondering how to put this together without using an actual binder (which is what its size warrants, unfortunately). I was planning on using one of those translucent covers with the hard plastic binding bit that you slip over the end to hold it all in, but no such luck on the fitting aspect. Plus, I've got to redo my table of contents, as the paper I'd yet to do ended up exceeding the two pages I allotted for it, and all the page numbers (especially if I decide to take out the big section of notes on the INTP personality type--they're not mine, and really just are serving to bulk up the portfolio--as that's at the beginning). Though the latter's only in pencil, so that won't be bad.

The bad bit? I've yet to study for Spanish. This final paper for AII and the backlog of progress-reporting journal entries that I had to do tonight took far more time than I expected.

I've yet to even find the paper that tells me what's on this Spanish final. I know there's history (which I only vaguely know--though he might have mentioned something about using notes on that bit that I may or may not have grasped as it was in Spanish and I only heard it in passing; that would make that aspect a whole lot better) and something over the play we read, plus grammar and vocab, the latter being the only one of all the topics that I know the specifics of (as I've got two pages of the possible words).

Gah. Took an uberlong nap (like nearing actual nighttime sleep length--4 hours in one block, then maybe two more later when I was bored and fell asleep while playing this handheld Slingo game that's captured me in its mindlessness lately) though, so I should be okay. Not exactly of my own free will, as I've been so damn tired lately and didn't exactly mean for it to be that long, but it should definitely pay off when I've got to take these two finals tomorrow and don't expect being able to go to bed.

I need to make a ShopN'Save run for some lettuce, as the family took it camping and I'm left with nothing to eat that's not. . . erm, gross or uber hi-cal. But I'm reluctant to do it until the sun comes up, LOL, even though they're open. I do not like the darkness driving stuff.

Dumb sleeping. I SHOULD NOT BE AWAKE AT THIS TIME. I was trying to get back on track last night, but at 4pm or so I just was too tired. And I seem to lack the willpower to get out of bed even when I wake up and acknowledge that I should not be sleeping.

You'd think I'd be feeling really good, because I've actually been getting some 8 hours of sleep a night, but the weird night/morning switch has taken away any benefit because I just feel weird.

AND MY EMAIL IS NOT WORKING, THE WHORE. I am like "But LJ comments?" and it is like "No." I don't know where they're going, or if I'm getting them, because I've caught a couple when I happened to go back and check the post, but they are not hitting the emailz.

Oh, and FYI. Do not be eating the vegetarian canned chili, thinking that since it doesn't have meat, it shouldn't be highly caloric. THIS IS NOT TRUE. I nearly cried when I typed it all into the internet counter thing yesterday morning. I managed to go over my calories for the day AT 5:30 IN THE MORNING.