unsympathetic.net

It’s Saturday night, nearly midnight, and I’m still trying to catch up on two days of feeds. Two days that I spent sick, watching crap TV, trying to will myself to do anything else and not succeeding.

I don’t normally blog on the weekends, but lately everything has been so anti-normal, I thought “i should write something, but i feel like i have nothing to say.”

And it’s very true. I heart Chico, but it’s still a struggle to get anything really done. I’m nearly two novels behind in my class readings. Whoever thought it was a good idea to group a bunch of gothic novels together in the beginning of the semester (cough…married teachers…cough), especially novels I’ve read before, was wrong. I’m just sliding by in class because I can remember enough to contribute to discussion, but not enough to pass a quiz.

My Honey has been here with me for the last week, and I haven’t even written about that. I’m not sure if I ever even wrote about the struggle it was to leave her behind with my brother, but it’s not a bed of roses with her here. I need to walk her every day, and I couldn’t take her out Thursday or Friday because I was too sick to do anything at all recreational. I love having her here, but at the same time she drives me nuts.

The one very bright light is that I really do like my roommate. Course, she makes me feel inadequate and the man of the relationship. She cooks and cleans and I take out the trash. I feel bad about the cleaning, but I’m not a “clean with cleaning supplies” sort of girl. I ask her to tell me what to clean, and she says “don’t worry, I’ve got it” and I feel horrible, because it should have occurred to me to clean the bathroom mirror first. At least she doesn’t clean my sink. I’d feel horrible if we’d progressed to that.

I feel like I can’t turn my mind off. I want to blog, but seem to have nothing to say. I want to do my homework, but I can’t bring myself to read stuff that I’ve read before–and no one should have to read Turn of the Screw twice in one year for educational purposes.

I don’t know who to blame for getting me sick. My dad, who was as stuffed up as I was when I called this morning, or Josh over the interwebs. I fully believe you can get sick over IM. I’m leaning towards him.

And I’m still bitter about my mom. She wants me to come home every weekend, bring home random stuff because she needs to use it, but refuses to drive up to Chico to see me. She acts like I live in another state instead of two hours away. She tries to make me feel bad for being so far away, and I have to remind her that she moved 3000 miles away from her mom when she went to college, and only came home to visit once. I’ve already been home twice this month, and will be back down again next week.

I’m rambling. Definitely rambling. But I feel better, even if it is a Saturday night, and I live in a party town, attend a party school, and have been to exactly zero parties. At least I have my computer. I’d say I have my late night IM friends, too, but I know they’re all playing Halo 3. And I am a bit jealous, because I miss watching Dustin play. Ce la vi.

As it turns out, so much easier to read romance and and paranormal stuff than actual assigned reading.

1. Harlequin Presents: The Heiress Bride — Lynne Graham
2. Dark Magick — Cate Tiernan
3. Awakening — Cate Tiernan

Quite unsurprisingly, I have read another romance novel named The Heiress Bride, aside from the one this week. And it’s sitting on my bookshelf. I love reused names.

Bit weird that I managed to finish of three books this week, with everything else I’ve been doing, but then again, Oliver Twist was assigned reading. Sadly, I’ll probably re-read half of it over the course of the week since I have an essay due next Monday about it.

1. Tithe – Holly Black
2. England, England– Julian Barnes
3. Oliver Twist — Charles Dickens

I could go into Oliver Twist. In fact, I will, with the essay that I don’t want to write, but suffice to say that I wasn’t particularly thrilled with it, and the coincidences wouldn’t fly in a modern novel.

And jesus, how did I manage to go a whole week without a trashy romance?

When you’re dependent on an antenna to serve your TV needs, you’re limited in what’s available to watch.

Daytime TV as served by an antenna, even more so. It turns out that nearly all the major channels–NBC, ABC, FOX, CW–happen to love court shows. You’ve got Judge Joe Brown, Judge Hatchet, Divorce Court, and People’s Court, among others.

ME and I were very well acquainted with court television the first two weeks of the semester, when we were waiting for Comcast to come and turn on our cable.

We watched it so much, that we noticed things that we probably shouldn’t. That people always refer to Judge Joe Brown as Judge Joe Brown. That the Divorce Court judge shouldn’t get so friendly with the bailiff in chamber. That the funniest thing on People’s Court is when Judge Marilyn Milian says “are you picking up what I’m putting down?”

Also, we noticed that non other than Harvey Levin is the outside legal reporter. You know, the guy who stands outside in front of the crowd and asks them what they think of the case. And if you don’t know who Harvey Levin is, he’s the head editor for TMZ.com.

At first I didn’t believe ME at first when she pointed it out, but a quick check on IMDB shows her to be correct. His IMDB profile shows that he gets around, but it just struck us as funny that the guy who would stand outside and ask for opinions on stupid People’s Court cases would now be the head editor for the most popular gossip blog ever.

And we can’t wait to watch TMZ on TV. Harvey really knows how to work a camera.

– “Beverly Hills,” The Green Album: Weezer

As it happens, I love to feel smart. And nothing makes me feel smarter than correcting a teacher. For me, it doesn’t get to happen often because literary analysis is very subjective, and more often than not, an English teacher will just shut you down and say “no, that’s not what it means at all” rather than tell you you’re right and that never thought if it like that.

Luckily for me, then, is that I get to take other classes besides just English.

I’m taking an Ag class (Agriculture) which is about food sustainability and how we’re going to feed the growing population of the world when the usable farm land is shrinking.

The section we’re on now is just basic biology. The food chain, energy conversion, interactions. As the instructor stood there lecturing, I missed terribly my Marine Biology teacher. He was awesome, and my current instructor is just… bland.

Being that it is an Ag class, we started out on photosynthesis and primary production, when we were shown the chemical equations for both photosynthesis and respiration. Which were wrong.

Here are the chemical equations as taken directly from his presentation:

Photosynthesis:

Respiration:

Unfortunately, those equations as written are physically impossible. In no way can sunlight turn two Hydrogens into 12, or three Oxygens into eight.

The correct equations, then, are:

Photosynthesis:
6 CO₂ + 6 H₂O + sunlight → C₆H₁₂O₆ + 6 O₂

Respiration:
C₆H₁₂O₆ + 6 O₂ → energy + 6 CO₂ + 6 H₂O

I know, I know, this isn’t really at all interesting.

The point, though, is that no one else caught the mistake. Not in my class, not last semester. Even worse, once I let the teacher know it was wrong–and he acknowledged that it was wrong–he gave us almost exactly the same lecture the next class period, and when he went over the equations again, he still had, and taught, them wrong.

So I feel especially smart. I almost hope there’s a question on the test asking us what the correct equation is. Because I’d so totally get it right.

–”Photograph,” Green Album: Weezer

It’s hard to believe that I managed to read two books this week. Granted, they’re both romance, but it’s better than nothing at this point. Between all the reading for my genre class and my Victorian lit class, I barely want to pick up another book.

1. Knight of a Trillion Stars — Dara Joy
2. A Hunger Like No Other – Kresley Cole

It’s good to know that even alien men look like Fabio, and that a vampire and a werewolf can find a happily ever after.

As it turns out, taking a hiatus doesn’t suddenly inspire a person to write. Instead, it lets them not feel guilty about not writing at all.

For the first time in four years, I took a month off of blogging. On purpose. Which in itself is just a plain weird thing for me to do. But this last August happened to be a busy one for me, and after a summer of mush-for-brains posting, I thought the blogosphere would be a far better place if I refrained from adding to it when I knew it would be nothing worthwhile.

In the coming days, there will be posts about trains! and victorians, macbooks and classmates, moving and books. Course, not all in one post, although that might be interesting as well.

A few highlights of the last month, to catch up on my uninteresting life:

• I quit the job that I’ve had for the last four years. And bought a macbook that same day.
• I moved the farthest I’ve ever been from where I was born. And it’s just far enough to not have to come home every weekend.
• ME and I have lived together for exactly fourteen days, and we still like each other.
• I mangled my lip with a new piercing, and surprisingly, it hurt less than when I had my ear pierced at 19.
• When I was finally gearing up to work on the site again in preparation of the end of the hiatus, it took me three days to remember my FTP password. I still haven’t looked at my stats.
• Classes have started at CSU Chico, and I’m already ready for the end of the semester.

I don’t know if I’m really ready to resume blogging, but there will soon be new things to complain about (trains!), and I can’t keep complaining to ME if I want us to still like each other at the end of the day. And I do still want her to like me at the end of the day, otherwise she might not cook dinner. I do really love to eat.

So, if you missed me, I’m back. If you didn’t miss me–well, then obviously I haven’t done my job correctly. I’ll get back on that.

– “Checkmarks,” Almost Here: The Academy Is…

Turns out, it’s hard to read for fun when you’re being attacked from reading assignments on all sides. And really, Victorian essays are no place to begin the semester. Makes me want to quit while I’m still ahead. Or headache-less. Thank good for romance.

1. The Nymph King — Gena Showalter