The times they are a-changin'

The landscape is green again, the water is liquid, the skies are intermittently sunny, and my estrogen levels are back on the rise. I spent a weekend with my dad, talked to LS last night, made some progress with getting new glasses, and found that an internet problem I had was with the router rather than my computer.

I'm not sure what I'm doing tonight, but I seem to have an open slate for today, so we will see. Again I'm being hit by a sensation of no plans, even though it's not really the case. But 2008 was such an anticipated, glamorous year that I really didn't spend any time thinking about 2009. It's like "okay, I turned eighteen, graduated high school, had my crazy teen summer, and made my first term of college - now what?" It's almost a relief, like now I can just get on with life.

Cabin fever

After three months of school living on my own, followed by five exciting days on the East Coast, being snowed in at home is rather unwelcome in its quality of drastic change. Every time "White Christmas" or "Let It Snow" comes up on Pandora, I mentally growl at it. Who says we've no place to go? I've got places to go!

(My personal favorite Christmas song is "Santa Claus Is A Black Man." I pretend it's got something to do with Obama.)

Yesterday I finally got to holiday shopping. It was amazing to get out. And as frustrating as the snow is, it seems to bring out the best of Portland in people who are out and about. I saw a guy offer a ride to some people waiting for a bus (undoubtedly a late one) and some pedestrians help push a car that got stuck in a driveway.

Today however I was struck with severe disappointment when stupid Kaiser told me I can't get my glasses prescription because the center where I had my last eye appointment is closed by the weather today. I just want to get a new pair of glasses before school starts again, and going out to check out frames was going to be my entertainment today.

And the last other person is leaving the house, so I really have to find something to do.

Biologists join the force!

http://xkcd.com/520/

What did us chemists ever do to you? I guess we'll just have to ally with the geologists to make it even...

Plus: Erlenmeyer flasks as drinking vessels = awesome. I want one.

Part D: now what?

I'm finally across the boundary into that no-plans void. Term's over, grades are done, Reed decision is finished. Right on schedule, crazy shit is happening and Portland is tripping me out. The perfect antidote? The ability to completely make it up as I go. I went to yoga today - haven't been back in two years. I'll have to keep making up weird stuff to do, to counteract the fact that I have no school routine to contrast with the spectrum of chaos that other people create for me.

Part C: things go a little nuts

Then PDX drama ensued.

LS, my high school boyfriend, went missing from school. His mom called me trying to figure out what was going on - I had no ideas - and then he came back, and she texted me this morning saying he's okay. Now he's not coming back to Portland for the break - he's going to go stay with one of his college friends in Florida.

Senor Evergreen is "taking a break from romance" because he feels like he doesn't know how to be happy without it. Good for him, getting straightened out. LS came to the same realization a while ago but failed at executing the break. It makes me think about myself - do I have this problem? I truly think I don't. I have had romance in my life almost nonstop for quite a long time, and I do want it currently. But there have been brief periods where I didn't have any, and it didn't bother me. I was happy with my life.

Part B: good school news

When I got back to Portland, I heard good news: my best friend got into Reed!

I also saw my final grades and they are as follows:

A CH 224H
A CH 227
A MATH 251
A- WGS 101
P* DANC 184

GPA: 3.91

The P* means it was only offered pass/no-pass. My GPA means I'll be on the Dean's List, which should be good for my own application to Reed.

Part A: trip to the East Coast

First off, a ton of trivial funny stuff happened:

- Between leaving Eugene and arriving in Hartford was about 24 hours; I spent only about 12 hours in Portland.
- This was my first airplane trip since turning 18 and needing government issued ID.
- We drove on I-84... in Connecticut.
- In NY it was 64 degrees. On some steep stairs, I was walking around in a tank top in December.
- Meanwhile, it Portland it was snowing.
- Our return flight was early enough, and we were east enough, that we got up at midnight in PST.
- I saw a bird, a little sparrow or something, inside the Newark airport.
- And my mom would like to inform Portland drivers that they have nothing to complain about and should go try to drive in New York.

We went to a wedding dinner, the wedding ceremony and brunch, dinner with the parents of the bride, and a day in New York City.

The dinner was the night before the actual wedding ceremony, which we all really liked because all the friends and family of the couple got to know each other. All the people there were interesting, but the best was meeting the bride (our friend's) parents. She is my stepdad's childhood friend, and he has told me so much about her parents, I really wanted to meet them. I felt I connected with them quickly and it was odd, because we had never met before but have this whole set of people in common.

After the wedding, we went to New York for a day. We rode the subway, had a picnic in Central Park, and spent most of the day at the Museum of Natural History. The museum is really, really big - a place where you can go time after time and not get bored, unlike OMSI, my other beloved science museum. In the mineral room, I was looking at the chemistry of some of the minerals and there were old, weirdly arranged periodic tables with eight groups and "B" groups for the transition metals. There's also a ton of stuffed animals in displays with excellently rendered background, and we went to the dinosaur room.

It was really fun. But by the end, I was definitely glad to be going home. Back to stability, or so I'm hoping. Things have been going a little nuts since getting back.

Finals

I feel pretty good about my finals. My math went pretty well - there were one or two problems where my answer seemed suspiciously simple, though I couldn't find anything wrong with it, but I also finished one of the bonus problems and got partway on the other. Add to that the amount of little mistakes you'll make even when you think you've done 100%, and it seems like I'm looking at something in the 90s, as usual.

Chemistry also had two problems where the answers seemed suspiciously the same, but I think I did really well. I felt better about this test than either of the midterms, on which I got 91 and 96. I think it's possible I even got 100%, though not likely - but I think it's quite plausible I topped my previous 96. We'll see. My average on everything else is really high too - I calculated that if I didn't even take the final I would still get a C, and if I get 100% my class average will be about 97%. I don't want to hope too much, but it seems potentially possible to get an A+. If I did, it would mean a lot to me.

College vs. high school

I just realized that the mood of the end of the term is completely opposite in college and in high school.

In high school, the end of the term tended to be really stressful - big projects to work on, often assigned at the last minute, most people turning in piles of late work, and all the little homework assignments continuing alongside the portfolio projects.

In college, everything slows down and gets calm at the end. There are finals, but no classes the week of finals. There is hardly any homework due the last week classes run. You have time to study and review what you've learned, cement it in your mind.

Life is funny lately, it seems to slow down and then jolt forward again. The last few days have been spare of things to do, very relaxing or boring, depending on how I feel. But tomorrow, after an interminable bus ride, suddenly I will be in crazy-rushing-around mode again - packing, getting up early in the morning, going through an airport and spending several days on itinerary.

Between the chemistry exam and mid-afternoon I spent some time with Dancing Physicist and I enjoyed it, but it was a little sad because I don't know when I'll see him again. He showed me around the dorms a bit, which is nice since I'm moving in next term.

I don't know what this break is going to be like either. I've gotten some plans laid out for winter term (and as well I should have) but these couple of weeks, after I get back from the East Coast, are still a blank. It's kind of terrifying, but exhilarating to know that no matter what happens it will be unexpected.

Stability

Thinking more on the change/stability thing, I seem to be a stabilizing person. I realized that both of my best friends right now have, at some point, called me the only constant in their social lives.

Change

I realized that although I thrive on stability, I also require periodic change. When I moved into my room, I took pleasure in filling up, making it cozy. After moving almost all my stuff out of it today, I'm equally happy with the change. I tend to change my hair in some way about twice a year, and each time I change schools I feel some relief at being stripped of most of my social connections, even though I immediately go about trying to make new ones.

I guess it goes back to what I was talking about before - change defines stability.

Condom clothing

Check it out:

http://blogs.dailyemerald.com/photo/2008/12/07/latex-fashion/

And take a closer look at the one that says "Latex Fashion 18" when you mouse over it... :)

I liked this event because everyone who modeled just volunteered and there was no screening process - so it was full of real-sized bodies. There was one ethereally skinny model but most were curvy and womanly as you can see.

Final grades

So theoretically I can start viewing grades today, as soon as they're submitted. Obviously, my math and chemistry grades won't be submitted until after I take the final exams, but my WGS, dance, and lab grades could be up anytime now.

I don't expect WGS to be up for a while; after all, my GTF has to read 60 5-page papers, turned in last Thursday and Friday. Dance should be a short wait, because there's very little to grade and it ended on Tuesday. Now lab, I'm not sure about. It's not posted yet, but the final exam results are available on Blackboard (I got a 95). Unfortunately, that doesn't give me enough information to calculate my grade because the class is curved and I don't know what my TA's average is.

Also, a problem from my very last math assignment: "The rate (in mg carbon/m³/h) at which photosynthesis takes place for a species of phytoplankton is modeled by the function below, where I is the light intensity (measured in thousands of foot-candles)."

I can do the math on the function, but WTF does any of that mean? Really, foot-candles?

Last classes, moving, and SAD

My lab practical exam that I was looking forward to so much turned out to be really really boring. I thought identifying chemicals would be fun - and it was in some cases, but I underestimated just how long four minutes is when you've got nothing to do but stare at the bottle of ammonia in front of you that took ten seconds to identify. Also, I was disappointed that they didn't include LiCl as one of the unknowns. I wanted to see that brilliant magenta flame again.

The last chemistry lecture, though, was awesome and amazing. There is a running joke in our class that indigo isn't a real color, so when we got a slide about color absorption and I asked what the difference was between violet and purple, the prof took the opportunity to bash indigo. "What have they replaced it with?" he asked, and I'm not quite sure the question makes sense, but it doesn't matter because someone answered him "Pluto." Then at the end of the class, our professor sat on the table, took out a guitar, and played a song about sodium and chlorine in the ocean. It was FANTASTICALLY my style.

So next week I have two finals, and then I'm coming back home only to turn around and the next day go to the East Coast for a wedding. Here's the thing: I need to get all my stuff out of my room before I do. That means I have three basic options:

1. Move all my stuff back to Portland, and then move whatever's necessary down again when I move into my dorm.
2. Store the stuff I want for my dorm in Eugene, and move the rest back to Portland.
3. Store everything in Eugene, and send what won't fit into my dorm back to Portland later.

I will have to talk to some people before I know what I need to do. It may be that I won't have access to a car on the day I need it to move stuff back to Portland and I have to take option 3, but even in that case I need to bring a box of clothes (and hopefully my bike) on the bus because I will need them for the break.

In other news, my seasonal affectedness grows every year. I used to function obliviously to the weather. Then freshman year of high school, I started getting frustrated and down in the spring, but feeling a lot better on sunny days even though I wasn't a big fan of the sun. This year, it's only December and I already feel AMAZING every time I see direct sunlight. But as soon as it goes away life seems strangely unstriking.

Health

Senor Evergreen got diagnosed: he has mono. I feel so bad for him - he is such an energetic person that it will suck for him to have to mope around and rest for so long. But if he doesn't, he'll just be sick for longer.

My mom thinks that weird illness I had at the end of freshman year was mono, but I'm skeptical. My immune system is good, but I'm not convinced it's kick-ass enough to reduce what's supposed to be a month-long illness to ten days.

Speaking of mom, happy birthday.

Winter term housing!

I definitely have university housing for Winter Term. This means I can now turn my attention to getting my stuff out of my room. I won't be able to fit as much stuff in a dorm room as my current one, so I'm going to have to take some stuff home, such as my full mattress, as well as finding storage for the things I'm going to keep in Eugene. I might also try to reduce my total quantity of stuff, and deposit some off-season clothes in Portland.

My lab practical is tomorrow, as is the due date for my final WGS paper. So after noon on Friday, I have no academic obligations until next Wednesday and Thursday. This means I have four whole days to clean up my room and figure out where everything is going to go. I like how finals week works out that way.

I love Portland

I love Portland and this Thanksgiving break was awesome. It was like my Halloween weekend, except longer so I didn't have to plan anything. I knew before I even left Eugene on Halloween what I was doing pretty much every hour of my time that trip, but this time it was exactly the opposite - I didn't even know how I was getting to the east side of town until the bus pulled into Union Station.

I loved wandering around town, seeing all the old places. When I walked from Senor Evergreen's house up to Woodstock to catch a bus to Sellwood, I stopped in at a bubble tea shop where I used to go with my high school boyfriend. I went to one of the parks near my house and climbed The Tree, the first of many trees I've discovered for climbing since the age of fifteen or sixteen. It's funny, I don't actually remember when I found it. I've just known it for a while now.

Thanksgiving was different. We didn't go to our family friends' house like we have for the past many years. We ate at home, with my grandma who just moved to Portland. It was weird and a little sad not to be with my best friend and company, but at the same time, it was a lot like Thanksgivings in the past, and reminded me of when I was younger.

I brought some shoes back that felt really comfortable yesterday, but after walking around campus all day in them, one of my feet hurts and a preexisting issue in the other is unimproved.

I just called Senor Evergreen today and he's still sick. He'd already been sick several days before the break. First the doctors thought he had strep; then tonsillitis. Now I guess they're back to not knowing. It reminds me of House, and that's not the most comforting thought to have about a friend. He's not going to go back to school until he's better, which I think is a good idea (dorms are nasty petri dishes), but it's awkward because it's right at the end of the term. So I'm worried about his health, and I'm also worried about his school stuff.

I don't know why I'M not sick. I spent a ton of time with Senor Evergreen, I was in a different city, and I made contact with someone from yet another place - Tacoma. But of course life is ironic and I'm perfectly fine. Knock on wood.