It's raining, it's pouring!

I was starting to really grumble about how little rain Eugene got this winter, when the weather decided to humor me.

It's been raining for four days.

Unfortunately I was terribly sick on Sunday, in bed trying to recover on Monday, and indoors catching up on schoolwork yesterday. But today despite an obnoxiously stuffed up nose I am back out and about and I can go dancing in the rain.

I understand why people splash in puddles now, because when you live somewhere that it never rains it is amazing to see little pools of water all over the damn place. Splish! Splash! Little rivers along the edges of the sidewalks. I was singing a ditty about the rain this morning when my roommate got in and gave me a funny look.

I've been thinking lately about spending some time in Seattle. I hear it actually rains a lot instead of just being cloudy all the time, but the weather changes daily because it's on the sound.

In Portland it would never rain for four days straight; Eugene just rolls differently. So all bets are off whether this might continue for a few days longer. I think a week or two would be a nice length.

Haircut and more scheduling

I did end up cutting my hair. It's rather boyish now, and I didn't cut it all the way down to the roots - the ends in some spots still have pieces of black. It's a little puffy on top, but it looks surprisingly good.

So I found a couple of options for 1-2 credit classes. The two that most appeal to me are guitar theory, and French oral skills. There's also a "guided listening" class which sounds like you could call it music literacy.

For my 4 credit elective, in the science box, I'm looking at environmental studies, geology, and psychology. In the non-science box I'm looking at a Shakespeare class, several philosophy courses, and a continuing women's studies class. I suspect I will end up choosing geology or philosophy, but all these six are still on the table and I will have to check scheduling and get some other opinions.

Appearance changes upcoming, and next term

I was going to grow my hair out again, but I realized I'll want to cut off the black part soon. I wasn't going to do it yet though because it's still cold and I want to keep my hair for insulation. But, it's been warm for a couple days and the big hanks of hair next to my face are starting to really bug me in a tactile way. I'm not sure if my roots are long enough yet, but I may cut my hair soon, even tonight.

Also, I have money to get a lip piercing. I need to go find out the probable cost soon.

And one of these days I will get down to Environmental Health and Safety and get those trainings to be a demo helper.

This term seems to be flying by; it's already the end of week 7. Is it really so far past Winter Break? Have I really been living in the dorms that long? Registration is coming up in a little over a week for spring term.

I know I don't want to take 18 credits again. It's getting pretty hectic. I'd really like 16, but that's an awkward number to hit when you have a 2 credit class in the non-negotiable box. It means I'd need to find another 2 credit class and those aren't that common; they're mostly labs.

I really would like to take math at 11am like I did fall term and not 1pm.

I'd like to have some days without an 8:30/9am class, but I'd rather have the early class than one in the evening like writing. I absolutely do not want to take any class that starts later than 4 or runs later than 6.

I'm looking through my course catalog to find electives of interest. I'm strongly considering psychology, since I've been thinking about taking a psych course since the beginning of high school and still never have. However I'm also looking at kind of tangent stuff like geology or advanced math, and trying to find some options that would fulfill a distribution requirement not science.

Ugh

Today in lab I broke two test tubes, I had to redo an entire trial because I bumped a knob on the spectrometer, and my final data set made absolutely no sense.

My only consolation is that nobody else's data made sense either. Though I suspect mine is among the worst.

Anyone who's watched Office Space - the Spec 20 is now my fax machine.

Food

I'm getting fat on dorm food.

I don't actually know this, because I forgot to weigh myself when I went back home. But I feel like I am, and my pants fit funny today...

It's psychologically annoying, but also, if I'm really gonna be a runner I need to get serious about losing weight for the sake of my joints.

...

No more Carson Late Night for a while.

Split the 5 point lunches into a small early meal and an afternoon snack. It IS possible to eat 4 times a day here, now that I've scouted out all the 2 and 3 point eats.

Instead of a big Caesar salad get a small one with tofu - same price, more protein, less fat.

Have yogurt and granola for breakfast. Tried and true.

Carry my water bottle everywhere. It's only 11 in the morning and I'm almost finished with a liter.

And keep running. I was out for about a week with a knee issue but I went out again last night. The run will go on.

Ah, irony

Senor Evergreen called me and said he'll be in Eugene this weekend.

This weekend I'm going to Portland.

I appreciate that irony like this just happens in my life sometimes. It's pretty funny. And I'm especially pleased that it doesn't bother me that much.

We may cross paths in Portland, but in no way am I planning to run around getting stressed about time this weekend. If it doesn't work out, I'll see him at Spring Break and I'm okay with that.

Probably because that's what I was expecting anyway.

Caffeine

There is only one word for my body's relationship to caffeine and that is WEIRD.

For the most part, I seem to have a reverse tolerance for it. When I'm drinking a lot of caffeinated beverages, it works in a very typical manner and I can predict my reaction to any given source of caffeine. I can even perceive some effect from tea. When I haven't been drinking much caffeine, I'm highly insensitive to it. I had a Red Bull at ten o'clock last night thinking "ok, playing with fire" but I still got tired as usual, went to bed normally and slept fine.

On the other hand, I used to notice a phenomenon where non-caffeinated sodas would give me a sugar "crash" and caffeinated ones didn't. When I started to drink more caffeine, caffeinated sodas started to be risky but energy drinks were still fine. That suggests ordinary tolerance, at least to that particular sugar-moderating effect.

My history with coffee confuses the issue even further. Or perhaps it doesn't. In any case, coffee will often actually make me sleepy - mostly in high doses. Why perhaps it doesn't confuse the caffeine issue is I've also observed this effect with decaf. This has ebbed and flowed - there was an instance where I started getting drowsy after half a mocha, but now I can easily have a regular cup of coffee with no problem.

So what in the hell is the pharmacology of all that?

Something exciting for post #100

I saw post #100 coming up and wondered how I'd celebrate it... well apparently I'll celebrate by having something interesting come up!

I went to office hours for no reason this morning. I've been meaning to do that for a while and just chat with my professors about science but I have a way of forgetting when office hours are until after they've already passed.

I went in, but several other people were actually there for homework help so I popped in and out a few times doing other things, and on one of those ventures I saw the guy we all call "the demo guy." He's the one who gets to go into chemistry classes and make cool colors appear or set things on fire. Or drop sodium in water, which first creates hydrogen and THEN sets it on fire. But I digress.

I asked him when HIS usual office hours are, and I forget how the conversation turned so quickly, but he said if I go get fire extinguisher and lab safety training I could help help him do demos. THAT sounds exciting, so I am definitely going to go see what I can do about that.

Then I went back to my original prof's office hours and he ended up finally explaining entropy to me in a way I can understand.

I also had a funny dream about Obama this morning, but that's a story for another post, if at all.

Math music

Generally, I find listening to music while doing calculus homework to be a very nice combination. I can pay attention to both at once, and the beat of the music keeps my motivation up to continue on with the math.

It turns out that's not universally true.

Nevermind? Excellent calc music. Title of Record? Also excellent. My Aim Is True? Not bad and a nice change of pace.

Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits?

... no.