"I can't believe you said that! Apologize to the entire continent of England!"

So I did my crime mapping midterm while watching Craig Ferguson. And then I figured out what classes I have to take for the rest of my college career (and more specifically, which ones I'll be taking in the fall) while my mom watched Cold Case and Homicide: LotS.

Yeah, I'll be taking some nice general ed requirements in the fall. Go me? Ah well, two of the four classes are with professors I like, and none start before 1pm. So... there's that!

So, I've got to come up with a personal "tragedy" to write about for my freshman comp class. Think I could get away with writing about the day I went crazy and slaughtered my college English class because no one knew what a guttersnipe was and the professor can't use quotation marks properly?

Eh, probably not. Damn it.

...I also just tried to find an emo-angsty entry in my LJ about something that actually, y'know, happened in real life and wasn't laughed at by me two days later. Yeah. Nothing. I have no tragedies! And I've already written one paper on how the tragedy of my life is that I have no tragedies, I refuse to do it again.

So. Now the decision comes: Sims 2 or TV Tropes? On the one hand, TV Tropes. On the other hand, I'm playing a family with eight kids, and they're all generally in or near platinum!

We had English outside today, which was nice - of course, pretty much all of the comments I got on my paper were about half a sentence long and meaningless, because I give most people yearbook syndrome (yes, every single yearbook I've ever gotten has about fifty "You're so smart! Good luck next year!" with nothing else - at HX, of course, I got more, "Good luck! Don't get AIDS!" because HXers are effed up in the head, y'all).

Our assignment was to write 400-500 words in the format of "I have _____; I have _____;" etc. If anyone cares, this is mine:
( Why yes, some of this was phrased simply for comedic effect )

And now, time for forensic anthropology! Which is full of people who make things far more complicated than they ever need to be - which, really, applies to most people.

So I totally gave blood today, and now have a mega-cool purple arm wrap which, sadly, keeps me from being able to bend my left arm very much. On the upside, somebody totally passed out when I was there! Apparently they've had three people pass out in the six hours they were here - the tech I was talking with had worked for Bonfils for a year and never had more than one person pass out in a single day. Makes sense to me, though, college students aren't especially known for taking care of themselves (especially, I suspect, on campuses like Auraria, where nearly every student is going to school and working).

But yes. I gave blood, got some cookies, and feel extremely proud of myself for not freaking out (and for managing to manipulate my heart rate and blood pressure to give-able levels, since they like to go way high and way low, respectively).

And now, I have some time to kill before I head off to Crime Mapping, the most awesomest class taught by the most awesomest professor (at least in this semester; my English prof has apparently done NaNoWriMo once, but hated it, which is just further proof of why I should dislike her).

I could probably leave for it now, we're in the computer lab for today.

Oh, and once again, c_crecs is my recommendation journal! Feel free to rec me something to read, and it may end up there!

So, uh, I may or may not be totally wanting to work for the EU or UN. Which also brings up the question, could I even work for the EU, since I'm not European? We shall see! We'll also see if I still feel this way after the ritalin's worn off and I'm not highlighting the chapter on IGOs!

Oh man, I gotta write my damn paper. And then the extra credit papers. And then study for the final (okay, highlight for the final, it's open-book and I'm a speedreader, not terribly concerned over this one). And considering the number of windows I've opened up so far, I think it's safe to say that the ritalin is losing its effectiveness. Booster time! Reminder: I really need to make an appointment with Kaiser so I can get my prescription refilled. This was supposed to run out May of 2007! That's not good!

For amusement's sake: my top five most recent emails on gmail are two sets of replies to posts on a RPG I joined, one set of replies to a comment on JournelFen, and two emails from myself, entitled 'notes to be printing yes' and 'PAPER OMG RITE IT'. Well, at least I amuse myself!

...fast forward to 12.11, and I'm done! Whoo! Hooray for soon having three credits for two weeks worth of work!

Just finished my first exam for international relations. 33 questions, multiple-choice, and guess how long the professor gave us to take it?

An hour and fifteen minutes, with a fifteen minute break afterward. Yeah, I finished in fifteen minutes.* So now I'm free until 2.30! Although I had to walk over to the Tivoli because the Metro computer lab at King Center is closed for some reason.

Reel Big Fish and Streetlight Manifesto concert tonight! I'm super-psyched, even tho I have to attempt to find parking on Colfax, which never ends well.

Aaaand I've managed to kill enough time for me to head back now.


(* Mostly because I read very fast, and refuse to go over questions again, because every time I do my grade drops a letter)

Okay, I get paid tomorrow. Good thing, considering I'm down to 20 bucks in my checking and savings and seven bucks cash (and seventeen bucks on my GameStop card, whoo for trade-ins!). The problem lies in the fact that I will be using this paycheck to buy Christmas presents and the complete Obernewtyn series (which comes out Tuesday).

On that note: I'M FINALLY GONNA GET TO READ ALL OF THE OBERNEWTYN SERIES, GUYZ!!!! Oh man, anybody else remember when I totally had, like, my entire LJ themed after Obernewtyn stuff? Good times, good times.

In other news, I just finished my last class of the semester. Finals next week, and then I'm free for almost a month! It would actually be longer than a month, but I'm a genius who decided to take a winterim course - two weeks of five hours a day class in international relations, whoo!

And now, I shall bundle back up in approximately twenty pounds of winter clothing, so that I may walk half a block to work. Yay Colorado!

To any of my friends out there who are not yet in college... I wish to tell you one thing: NEVER PROCRASTINATE. Especially not in a workload heavy art class that means you're spending six hours straight slaving over two large drawings because you were too stupid to do them any sooner than two days before they're due.

It doesn't help that I just got a XBOX 360 and found my PSP, either.*



* = as an aside, yes, I totally can now play any game ever made in the last number of years except for PS3. Er, and some PC games that require a good graphics card. Which means two things: I need to save money to trade in my PS2 for a PS3, and I need to go down to Falcon Computers and see how much it would cost to upgrade my graphics card. Yesss... But after Fable 2 comes out, so I don't attempt to spend my Fable 2 money on a new graphics card.

Duuude, I should rly stop taking more than my recommended dose of Ritalin. I mean, I only took two and I'm twitchy with an increased heart rate. But damn, can I focus!

Oh, and in other news, I am drifting back to wanting to be a teacher. Ah, me and my inability to be decisive on anything. How very amusing! Granted, I wouldn't particularly want to work in the States, except maybe at HX because while the pay wouldn't be great, the lulz would be worth it, but maybe I could teach in Canada or the UK. That would be fun! Er, for random values of 'fun', that is.

...hm, Metro offers a secondary education licensure in behavioral science with a focus in history. I'm not sure if that's really weird, or awesome.

There's an info meeting on October 8th, from 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. in West 258. I can totally make that! I should go, so I at least have some info to work with.

And now, off to work! Today is not, sadly, a Ronin day, but it is a Damien/Liam/Kenton day!

So, apparently I'm a genius who can't read her own handwriting. My first Arabic test was October 1, not 7. Ah well, I didn't do great, but I did decently, I believe.

And in good news, I'm not actually missing my computer class tonight. Because she canceled it! So I can go to the friends and family sneak preview at my mom's new store without feeling the least bit of guilt! Ah, today is a good day. I should've known it would be good when I had two bowls of Kix this morning, because Kix are awesome.

Iiin any case, I now have an hour to kill before heading over to work early. Susie's out and we've been high all week, so Chavela will be up to her neck in screaming babies and new staff. Fun for her, amirite?

Oh! We got another new kid yesterday, Liam. He is a sweetie. Had a hard first day, but so do they all (except Kenton, I've never seen that boy cry. He just looks mildly interested and curious constantly). And, of course, Liam/Terah/Damien all got upset when I picked up one of them because they all wanted to be picked up. At least Terah'll go with anybody except Lisa, Damien is pretty stuck on me. But he's cute, so I don't mind.

Even if he is named Damien and his sister is Lilith.

Here I am, sitting quietly and nicely in computer class, totally surfing the web instead of... well, not, and I come across this fic summary: Owls, cauldrons, and pointed hats? Harry Potter was not amused. And he still wasn't entirely sure that his human trafficking theory had been wrong. Warning! Features a very cynical Harry. AU, no pairings.

My brain: OH HELLS YES MAN.

Also, our assignment right now? Extra credit, of the moronic yet time-consuming type. My worst kind! I enjoy quick, challenging efforts - it's why I do so well on standardized tests, because they're timed and you have to second-guess the questions.

Of course, I keep doing Mrs. Puff's "Extraaa credit!" voice in my head, which serves to amuse me endlessly.

Anyway, I have a question for you fine feathered folks: in regards to my "For the Lulz" next-gen HP game, would it be totally awesome to completely randomize the pairings with no regards to canon? I think so! Which is why Harry is married to Romilda Vane. Haha, suckas!

It also has Oliver Wood with Blaise Zabini, which I personally enjoy.

I am now the proud owner of the entire Sword of the Spirits trilogy by John Christopher. I read the series when I was about seven, maybe eight, when we were visiting my grandmother in Florida, and I adored the books (although it did make me a little confused on early Christianity, but no more so than smearing fake blood on a Ken doll at church did).

Oh, had my first history quiz today. Six true/false questions. I love going to a crappy university.

And apparently my new story is much loved in the universe, because it's getting way more attention than I have ever gotten: Genius Does What it Must, a smart(ass)!Harry fic. Go, read! I've actually plotted this out and know what the fuck I'm doing! It's a first!

Well, I just had a close encounter of the creepy kind. I'm sittin' there, innocently munchin on my Subway, when this kid comes up and tries to give me a bag of chips that he won but doesn't want. I decline; he takes this is a sign to stick around and babble. He was talking about how he'd already made two new friends today, and since we went to different schools this would be the last time he'd have a chance to make friends with me, and he and his friends had decided that whoever he made friends with would then be his friends, and the friends they made would be his, and he had more friends than his brother, he thinks. And he thinks everyone in the world should be friends, but he's not sure if we can be friends with terrorists unless they become ex-terrorists and stop wanting to kill Americans.

That's not the weird part.

He mentioned that if we met up again, we should exchange details, but we couldn't do it then because he didn't have anything to write with, but that was okay because he types everything for class because his handwriting is horrible, probably because of his disability, but he doesn't think he actually has a disability, (here there was some babble about Obama that didn't really connect to anything) because the government is covering up the existence of dragons and magic and aliens because they don't want the world population to freak out, but he thinks people wouldn't freak out too much. And he doesn't hear voices, except when he's talking to God and God talks back, and sometimes Satan if there's two voices, but he's open to the idea that God doesn't exist. There was also something about how you can't hallucinate in dreams, and when he saw "it" (I think a dragon, it was hard to tell), he thought he was awake because he pinched himself, but he can feel pain in dreams, so it must have been real because you don't hallucinate in dreams.

Yeah. He stood there, in the middle of room, and babbled this at me. I feel like I just did a whole bunch of acid.

Oh, forgot to do this earlier. The teacher never showed, but the class did for my Arabic class. In the tradition of Julia, I shall give them descriptive names:

Tall and Cute
Muscleman
Bitchy Art Teacher
Muslim Girl
Progressive Muslim Girl
Bad Tan Job
Former SEAL
Middle Eastern Boy 1
Middle Eastern Boy 2

Those last two are so named because they didn't really talk to the rest of us. At all. The former Navy SEAL was also really, really cute, but probably in his 30s. Alas! Oh, and Progressive Muslim Girl only had her hair covered, she was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. The other girl had the full robes (dress? Burka? I think it's burka) on.

And now, it's almost time for my computers class! Hey guys, I'm gonna learn how to type, aren't you excited for me?!

My Arabic professor totally didn't show up today because he was confused by the schedule. Although I was looking forward to it, at least it gave me time to go to the financial aid office and the cashier's. Now I'm killing a few minutes before work, where I shall work for two hours, and then have an hour of being on the computer and reheating some gyoza, and then it's off to computers for morons!

Hey, everybody needs a class or two to boost their GPA, right?

On the slightly disturbing side, I realized something last night: I've been in (non-chatroom) RPGs for five years; I've been going to fan conventions for five (six?) years; and I have been in fandom for ten years.

Ten years. A freakin' decade. I'm 18, fer cryin' out loud! *wild flailing ensues* On the upside, I've moved on from Star Wars and Animorphs to... *checks tabs* Er, Naruto and Dark Angel?

...yeah, I made myself sad. Oh well. Off to work! I shall show up early and they shall be amazed.

Nothing takes you out of a fairly dark HP fic faster than the phrase "We're all in this together". At least if you're me, because then you start singing the High School Musical song.

...I mean, I would possibly kill to have a Hogwarts School Musical, with the Gryffindors as the jocks, Slytherins as the drama kids, and Ravenclaws as the brains (Hufflepuffs, of course, are the filler crowd, like we always are). But Harry Potter doing jazz hands in the middle of an angstfest? Breaks the mood just a bit.

And I just saw an icon that was rather vehemently against the director of OotP, saying that he basically crapped on the book. umwut? I thought it was a fairly good adaptation. Not exact, but nothing ever is, and it rather kept the spirit of it all, I think.

But then, I can almost guarantee I'm putting too much thought into it.

So! In good news, I convinced my mom to drive me to campus tomorrow. This is important,because I forgot to pick up a scantron for my final, and had I taken light rail, I would've walked the entire length of campus twice (the light rail is right next to my class; the Tivoli, where you buy scantrons, is on the opposite end of our neverending campus).

Name a fandom, and I'll give you the scoop on my unpopular opinions related to that fandom!
Name pretty much any decent sized fandom, and I've probably dabbled, so feel free to go crazy.

Also, anybody got ideas for a good serial killer that my classmates probably won't choose for their papers? I'm thinking I'll go non-American for this (and obviously not Jack the Ripper either, come on), but that's mostly because the non-Americans are the ones who get the really good body counts. America may have more serial killers, but 90% of them have less than five victims. Laaaaame.

In the interests of research, and of spamming the hell out of your flists, I present the following ruminations:

CLASS : TIME SPENT ON FINAL : EXPECTED FINAL GRADE : EXPECTED CLASS GRADE
History : unknown, take home : A : A
Spanish : 50 minutes : C : D-
Geography : 15 minutes : B : C
Legacy : 2 hours : B : B

The last one, of course, I'm not sure on, because I haven't taken it. But it's a lot of writing, so I'll probably take all the alloted time, and I get Bs in everything in Legacy, so I'm pretty secure in that statement.

And, if I get the grades for class that I think I will, I will once more have alphabet grades! A, B, C, D! I used to do that aaaaall the time. (The As were usually electives, the Bs were foreign language, Cs were English/social studies, and Ds were math/science.)

I also realized something: In a week, I will be celebrating one full year of college life, and six months of continuous employment! It makes me happy.

So I'm going through another phase of 'omg mebbe i wanna move out bcuz i'm totes an adult nao'. Thing is, THERE'S SO MANY OPTIONS! *flails*

So, I decided to do a poll. Because I am horribly incapable of making decisions myself, so this is the best way to go. A note on the options: assume that all options include cable TV and broadband internet, and all but student housing allow pets.

Poll #1180475 zomg move out?!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 3

Where should I live?

...I totally set the curve for the exam over the second unit in geography. You know, the one that I took less than twenty minutes in order to answer 70 questions? Hecks yeah! This'll bump my grade for the class, man.