So I'm doing errands after work -- bank, gas, that sort of thing - and really struggling to force myself to do 'em because I've got a ferocious headache and feel like crap. I get to the grocery store (butter, hot dogs, grapes, milk) and in the middle of the produce section as I'm virtually entranced by the end-cap display of peaches, I realize: I haven't eaten today!!

That might explain a few things. *nom nom nom*

I cannot wait to move my bed back where it belongs. Another couple weeks of this and I'm going to have no pinky toe left on my right foot.

Just click on my ribbon where it says "Get a Ribbon" and post it to your LJ/Blog. When you do, Caring.com will donate $10 to the Alzheimer foundation.

Weather faeries!! Listen up!! It is patently ridiculous that I had my A/C running on Wednesday and tonight I have my chair blanket out to ward off the chill. Pick a temperature and bloody well stay there!!

I am breathing. Really.

I finished writing up and sent my project proposal to my new boss. I didn't have a whole lot of guidelines on it, and I didn't have any guidance on how many hours we were talking -- that was one of the reasons he wanted me to write up a proposal in the first place. So here I am, breathing, because I hate asking for things. God help me when I have to negotiate salary for the first time. Breathing. Yes.

Ok, so... it seemed like a good idea at the time.

But now my legs are telling me -- vocally -- that spending a day romping around the beach participating in many sports and falling on my butt trying to learn to skimboard followed by a day hiking around my old college town was Not A Good Idea.

It was fun at the time!!

*hobbles off*

1. Reply to this post, and I will pick five of your icons.
2. Make a post (including the meme info) and talk about the icons I chose.
3. Other people can then comment to you and make their own posts.
4. This will create a never-ending cycle of icon squee.

( Mine behind the cut )

I should be in bed, but I won't sleep.

I'm all over the place right now; up, down, sideways, inside out. Worst thing is, I've no idea why. Maybe I'm not busy enough (despite the fact that I didn't get half the work I wanted to done over break), maybe I'll settle when classes start again on Monday.

I'd feel better if I were at least making inroads on the other half of that pile of work, but I can't focus on anything for more than a few minutes. If I could focus, I could probably sleep.

Our big midterm project in Communicating was a mock Presidential debate. It's been a ton of work -- I was on "Obama's" campaign staff, as media consultant, and we were having prep meetings at least weekly in addition to the research and written work for class. And we had to record 30-second radio ads, too.

But today was the big debate, and it went off very well! You can read the liveblogging at http://debate08realtimeblogging.blogspot.com/ -- our media panel really captured their roles, I think! Supposedly there'll be video posted eventually, too.

... is finally finding a good New York-style pizza place that delivers and doesn't require you to sell your firstborn.

Pardon me, I have to go have gastronomical paroxyms of joy now.

I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I strongly suspect my professor of marking down my article critique because I described the writing as 'opaque.' (No, he didn't write it.) I was also, before I became too tired to sustain it, having 'future will eat me' anxieties over the fact that I just picked out a car, which the dealership is holding for me until the financing paperwork is all done.

So in my last post I talked about being amazed at the lengths to which students would go to avoid saying "I don't know."


Proving that the universe has a sense of humor, I have just come across a student who answered a question, quite simply, "I don't know."

(and I don't blame them; that's the trickiest question on the homework and I'm still not certain I get it. It's one of those things where the more you think about it, the less sense it makes.)

The lengths to which students will go to avoid admitting they don't know the answer never ceases to amaze me.

I've just read two paragraphs of discussion on a true/false question that could have been (and mostly was, by the other students) answered in one sentence.

They were very creative and well-researched paragraphs.

They were also wrong.

I am, however, highly tempted to offer bonus points for creativity.

Five hours ago, my homework was greek. No, worse -- cuneiform. I've been tangling with it off and on since then, putting it down when my brain started threatening to liquify. No idea when it happened, but I'm now sitting here cheerfully setting out strings of summation equations. Unfortunately, while the process is suddenly clicking, my mental math processor has completely shut down. It just took me five minutes and three tries to evaluate 1.05^2 correctly. I either need to go find my calculator, or go to bed.

How Econ Drives Mathematicians Crazy:

i and π are used regularly, but not as constants.

*forces herself to stop substituting 3.14 in mental math*

(that's supposed to be pi up there but it doesn't seem to render well in LJ/my journal font)

I was toasting an english muffin. When it popped up, one side of it went flying out of the toaster and landed on the counter. I thought that only happened in cartoons. *snerk*

I don't know whether I'm getting sick or just turning into a lazy-ass, but the last two days, it's been an effort and a half to drag it out of bed. I swear I would sleep 24 hours 'round if I could. That's usually a sign that I'm coming down with something, but I don't feel sick otherwise. On the other hand, three of my classmates have the Usual Winter Generic Creeping Crud, and they have it bad.

It is not supposed to rain inside the building. Therefore, please to be explaining why there is an intermittent and mild but decidedly present drip near my wall, the sound of which actually woke me from my drifting-off doze?

Bowl has been set down. Maintenance has been called. I remain grumpy and tired.

So, there was a trip to Vegas last weekend. It was pretty cool, but the best thing was that -- totally randomly -- I got to see the Clintons! It was the day of the caucus, and they had 9 special stations set up on the Strip for casino workers; Hillary was at the Bellagio and I happened to pass by just before she left. So I joined the rope line, and I got to shake her hand, and Bill's. Very cool!

Meanwhile, my Communicating Public Policy class is made of awesome. Seriously. Three hours of political discussion, once a week. Reading the major newspapers and political blogs counts as homework. (We have other readings too; in fact, I'm gonna have to drop $60-80 on our primary textbook. Dangit.) And today in our first real class, about 8 people dominated the discussion. (There's about 30-35 in the class.) By hour two it was so clear, you could see the hesitations starting -- the hand lift, pause, glance around, higher lift, last check for "is anyone else gonna talk?!", final raise.

Yes, yours truly was one of them. And I'm told I didn't sound stupid. Yay!

Actually, becoming a culinary goddess is apparently very easy. All you have to do is make oatmeal raisin (and oatmeal raisin walnut; half batch of each) cookies in front of a classmate who thinks "baking" is getting the kind of pilsbury cookies you have to put an egg in before you bake. You then take these cookies as your contribution to the post-finals party, whereupon your classmate tells everyone how miraculous it was that "that little bit of granules" became actual dough, and then cookies!

Meanwhile, you volunteer to help the clearly-stressed host (who needed a glass of wine more than any cook I've ever seen) do prep in the kitchen, and in the process rescue his third attempt at toast (for the stuffing) from burning. While conducting a brief argumentdiscussion with him because he's basting the bloody turkey every five minutes, argh!

Upon which the entire array of guests decided they stood in awe of the cookie-baker (and apparently, they were really good cookies) who could also mash potatoes and conduct an argument on the merits of turkey-basting versus leaving the damn bird alone to do its thing, and carve it afterwards when said host confessed his attempts to carve usually resembled chunks more than slices.

Not that they weren't also in awe of the host, who turned out a bird that was quite good despite the basting, green bean casserole, mac & cheese, and reeeeeally good homemade stuffing in a kitchen not a heck of a lot bigger than mine. (Read: the two of us working in it were hip-to-hip.)

And I had... *looks briefly at fingers, gives up attempt to count* ... several glasses of very good merlot.