Refraction

I’m tired and I’m a little sick of lab reports and problem sets, so here’s a bulleted list to while away some time:

• I enjoy synchronous communication greatly. It’s so much better than the silly asynchronous kind of the IM-Facebook-e-mail-phone tag variety. Especially when the latter methods are divorced from things like tone of voice and response time and body language. Yeah. (This seems a little random but I’ve come to realize over the last few years that it’s really the best way to do things. Planning dinner with friends? Phone them and ask them if they’re coming (berate them if necessary). Don’t try to do it on Facebook. That fails. MISERABLY.)
• I am almost officially a volunteer for for a certain prof’s research group. 🙂 Apparently they need to buy insurance for me. Not a bad idea for undergraduates. I also have a desk in the Chem building now! I certainly feel special *_*
• That ASUS EEE PC is looking more and more tempting every day. >_>;;

I feel… buoyant. 🙂 My panic was completely misplaced, and even though my nerves did get the better of me, eventually I did calm down a bit and it was fine. I may be working for an awesome prof this summer. 😀

Lab reports and problem sets are bringing me back down to earth a little bit, but I’m still feeling rather pleased.

I just realized that I have completed 91 credits at school. I’m not exactly sure how that’s possible given that I’ve really only completed five academic semesters. It averages out to 18.2 credits a term, or ~6 courses (assuming one course = 3 credits.)

To all the Arts students out there: I’m clearly not kidding when I say I have a heavy courseload.

(Naturally, there is some explanation for this: many Chem courses are 4 credits, rather than 3, and I did take a couple of summer courses. If you take out the summer courses, it comes out to a much more reasonable 5.7 courses per term.)

What’s slightly more interesting is that I have 31 transfer credits from high school and certain summer programs, so technically I have 122 credits. If getting a degree were just about accumulating credits, I could have been out of here by now. Unfortunately I also have to fulfill something called “upper-level requirements.” Alas. That’s what happens when your transfer credits are good for nothing but elective space… and you elect to fill elective space with a French minor.

I’m back at school now after a year-long hiatus in the working world.

I’d forgotten the things about school that I like (fun profs; learning things; seeing old friends) but there are also things that I don’t miss (midterms; buying books; bureaucracy; competition).

It’ll be an interesting term, to say the least :3

I miss my former co-workers.

(As an aside: I do not like titles for my weblog posts. If I wrote a blog on a topic as opposed to using my blog as an online diary, then they would be useful; as it is, the title is just kind of a formality. Do you title entries in handwritten journals? I don’t. [Yes, I keep one of those, too.])

I feel lately that life has become perfunctory. It’s especially bad around Christmas/New Year’s, as I always seem to be doing the same kinds of things:

• Clean … somewhat
• Consumerist buying spree
• Have coffee/tea with friends
• Listen to wintery songs
• Eat chocolate
• Worry about school
• Avoid the MJ at family gatherings

I suppose the argument could be made that these are traditions, but–when you’ve been doing this for the last week, it’s nothing but routine. Boring routine, at that.

At work there’s a bit of “war of the radio stations” going on–it seems three or four people each have strong preferences about which radio station is best suited for working in the lab, so we swing between:

• Soft rock/adult contemporary/easy listening
• Modern rock
• Classical
• Top 40-ish type music
• French talk radio (that’s me, and I only dare put it on when I’m in at 7:30 in the morning. Which I think has happened approximately once.)

Anyway, so today we have the adult contemporary station, and I hear a snatch of a song that goes something like:
“everybody wants to be understood … you are loved …”
I think to myself: “Who wrote this song? Are they kidding themselves? ‘You are loved.’ ‘You are loved.’ What an excellent and gripping hook. And why why why why would Josh Groban sing this?!”

I’ll be the first to admit I don’t always pay a huge amount of attention to lyrics (seeing as how I don’t understand the lyrics to half the music I listen to), but when I do, lyrics can really make or break a song for me. I mean, I know half the songs on that station are along the same kinds of lines, but … I honestly wondered for about 30 seconds whether this was a parody of some kind.

Also, I think I’m just kind of bitter that I don’t get my random tune-out-able Top 40 music now. I’m not sure I really like it any better, but at least the music tends to be a bit more upbeat (important at the end of a long day.)

… if the people you are now working/study with are of a totally different demographic than you.

During icebreaker (brise-glace) games, you are asked:

1. Etes-vous mariée?
2. Vous avez des enfants?
3. Où travaillez-vous?

During a game of “Who am I?” (“Qui suis-je?”), celebrities chosen include:

1. Gordon Campbell
2. Luciano Pavarotti

During said game, no knows any “jeunes chanteuses américaines (populaires!)” except for Jennifer Lopez.

The instructor is asked his opinion on the current state of politics in France.
(Which, by the way, has pretty much completely dashed my hopes of living in France. Ever. Unless I get married there. To a nice French boy.)

Sooooooooo on one of my random trips to the mall, I stumbled upon a sidewalk sale of books and proceeded to buy two poetry books. One is book of tranlated Quebecois poems about Paris; the other is a collaborative poetry effort between P.K. Page and David Stratford. It’s this last one which interests me the most: it reminds me of when I actually wrote “poetry” and didn’t wince over it.

I would like to set up a renga circle now, but I have a dreadful feeling this is going to be another one of my half-finished projects. Maybe I’ll just admire the poetry.

This must be the most random set of connections ever. It has to be, to lead to atheist goats.
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*bemoans the fact that she is sick on her birthday*

On the other hand, I do get to eat green tea ice cream cake.

I was sorting through papers in my room when I stumbled across this poem we looked at briefly in my intro to French lit class, and it seems oddly appropriate for my mood today:

Ce mois de mai tout se resjoie,
Ce me semble, fors moi, lassette!
All things rejoice this month of May
Except, alas, it seems, for me!
(Trans. A. S. Kline)