Thought of the Day #2 - Cat Fancy

Pop Quiz:

Q. What is a cat's favorite place to lay?

A. Squarely on your book while studying for your final.

I'll tell ya, nothin' says, "thanks for the yummy Friskies, Mama," like the cat flopping down in the middle of your book. To add insult to injury, the probablity that the orientation of the cat's flounce places the kitty's no-no hole about two inches from your nose is REALLY high in my house. What gives?

Seriously, here is the textual representation of me studying Physics last night:

"The periodic table of the chemical elements is a tabular method of displaying the chemical elements. Although precursors to this table exist, its invention is generally credited to Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869. Mendeleev intended the table to illustrate recurring ("periodic") trends in the properties of the elements. The layout of the table has been refined and extended over time, as new elements have been discovered, and new theoretical models have been developed to explain chemical*...kitty foot...kitty knee...kitty femur...kitty thigh...kitty butthole."

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!

And, judging from the resulting odor, SOMEONE needs to have their anal glands expelled...Ack!

But, as always, I try to find the bright side: someday I'll know how to expell anal glands, so at least they won't stink when they are ruthlessly aimed at my unsuspecting, unarmed nose.



*That entry is actually from Wikipedia...I didn't have my Physics book with me. Might as well quote my sources, blah, blah, blah.

Thought of the Day - Houdini TP

To all the public establishments (e.g., restaurants, sports arena, movie theaters, etc.) who in an effort to save a buck or two by equipping your restrooms with substandard one-ply toilet paper whose thickness cannot be measured without scientific-grade digital calipers, guess what?

It makes me use twice as much TP, if not more. How much money are you saving, now, Einstein??

I think, given the logic, nay, the implications of the situation, that my hiney deserves better, don't you, Mr. Restaurant Owner? Oh, I get it, you're so cheap, you're embarrassed about your squeaky butt, so you have to make mine squeak, too? WTF?!?!?!?!

I'm not asking for Egyptian cotton, people, I'm really not. But how cool would it be to use public facilities and not have the "bathroom tissue" dissolve away to nothing as soon as it hits moisture, leaving you wondering if it might be possible that you might have actually neglected to grab TP in the first place and instead decided to use your bare hand? The magnitude of that kind of cool-ness could be measured on the Richter scale, my friend, not scientific-grade digital calipers.

I swear, one of these days, I'm going to sneak into the men's rooms and replace all their urinal cakes with salt licks. How 'bout THEM apples, eh?

Endless Summer - Part II

Before I had a chance to recover from the nutrition-induced beating incurred over the last six weeks, I moved on to a condensed, six-week Physics 202 course. This is a four-credit laboratory science that, if anything like its chemistry and biology counterparts, would be a challenging class even in its 16 week format. What the hell was I thinking?

I know, I always say that. When I stack up a 14 credit semester with two lab sciences and a statistics course, I say that. When I insist that changing my major and taking on an extra class to catch up/stay on schedule won’t be a problem, I end up saying that. Sometimes I guess I just need the beatings to continue before I really get the message.

Now, it’s not bad enough that I decided to take a Physics "boot camp" style class. Nope. I decided to make it REALLY interesting and take the class that was scheduled in the MIDDLE of the work day. Seemed to me that it would all work out fine. My boss is really cool and approved it; the school is only 15minutes down the highway, so no big deal. Minimum time lost. Sweetness.

When we received the syllabus on the first day, I nearly passed out. This guy had ambitions of covering three chapters in the book per week and holding two lab experiments per week, in the same amount of time traditionally devoted to one lab experiment. Holy hell. Four days per week for six weeks. Bring it on.

In addition to having an out-of-control work load, I would have to make sure that I worked all my hours, got everything done for everyone at work, got all my homework done, take care of everything at home and, oh yeah, sleep.

Naturally, the sleep thing isn’t happening and it’s showing. I’m really grumpy a lot of the time. I seem to be in a permanent funk. My psyche has become uncharacteristically dark, too. I won’t go into details about that, but suffice it to say that I’m really looking forward to the return of my Bob Rossian-esque dreams about ponds, critters, and “happy little trees.” People are starting to notice at work, since now I just go straight to my office and don’t come out unless it’s to eat or take a restroom break. I feel really bad, but hey, I’m tired. Leave me alone. Oh, and did I mention that I hosted my poor family at my house during this class? They haven’t been down to see me in 4 or 6 years (there is a raging debate about that at the moment between me and my friend, “Stevis.”) and I’m running around all week trying to get to class and make sure they are having a good time. *Sigh* I just hope they had fun and come back to see us again! Sorry Mom and Dad! Thanks for being really good sports!!

Add to the frustration of an already difficult class, I share the class with a bunch of third graders. No, they’re not actually 3rd graders, they just freakin’ act like it. You see, typically the students in my classes are all like me – working and schooling, older, more respectful and responsible than your average college kid. Since I chose a class in the middle of the day, in the summer, I am surrounded by a bunch of kids that are on break from their REAL universities who are taking summer courses to knock out some classes. This, in itself, is a commendable decision on their parts. I can’t say, given the opportunity to go back and do school the RIGHT way (right after high school) that I would have done the same thing. My work ethic was really crappy 10 years ago. But I digress.

Their drive to finish their respective educations, however, does not constitute an excuse for the fact that they act like little bastards in the class. There’s a group of about eight of them who sit in the back of the classroom, throwing sarcasm at the professor (who is actually a really good professor), talking/texting on their phones in class, whatever. It makes it really hard for those of us who give a shit to concentrate. If I weren’t getting an A in the class so far, I would totally take the little cretins on. Seriously, I feel like I’m in a class of toddlers.

[Proof of grumpy weariness…in the last 8 paragraphs, I have cracked ZERO jokes and have sat here and keyboard-whined for the last 15 minutes. Dude, I hate whining and now I’m doing it. There I go again. Ugh.]

It doesn’t end there. [Yes, more whining]. Because I’m taking this class in the middle of the day, I miss work. I then need to make up those hours, putting me at work until 6 or 7 pm. Then, since every day in the condensed class equals one week of the regular session class, there’s homework to do – every night. Basically, my day looks like this:

- Get to work at 7 am
- Leave for class at 10 am
- Get back to work at 1:30 pm
- Stay at work until 6 or 7 pm
- Shove something small and quick (and healthy!) in my throat
- Do homework
- Go to bed at 1 am
- Lather, rinse, repeat.

OK, I’m done whining. I’m so tired, I don’t have the energy to whine anymore. Yeah, I’m SO done with this class. Only one week to go. Woo hoo!!

Oh yeah, did I mention that this was my last class needed for my Associate’s degree??

Next post – I bitch about how obtaining a Biology degree from George Mason University in a reasonable amount of time while working a traditional full time job is next to impossible.

RIP Randy Pausch

On April 20, 2008, I posted a link to "The Last Lecture," a presentation given by Randy Pausch, a Computer Science professor at Carnegie Mellon University. In this lecture, Pausch looks back on a life of trying to accomplish childhood dreams and a bit on how to treat yourself and others when traversing along the path of life. Also, he discussed his fight against pancreatic cancer and how he refused to lose himself in pity, but to maintain the same verve for life as when he was healthy.

After watching this video, I was quite moved with his message and my already ironclad drive and determination to belatedly accomplish my own childhood dream was revitalized. Hearing his words, and his emotionally charged and genuine delievery, truly inspired me, oddly, as I am not one who is easily inspired.

This morning, this amazing person with the amazing character lost his battle to pancreatic cancer. His words will always live on in my mind and I will continue to strive for the best, even when it seems out of reach. I know with all the love and support offered by all of you I WILL succeed and hopefully change the lives of many, many critters for the better. My only hope is that someday I will be able to thank everyone someday for the wonderful contributions you all make to my life daily.





God Bless Randy Pausch.

Endless Summer - Part I

Remember when summer meant 2 ½ months of doing exactly nothing? Going to the pool, maybe working a few days a week, hanging out with friends, driving around, getting into trouble…you know, fun stuff. Even now, as an adult, summer is the time of year where taking off early from work on a Friday is expected and vacations with family mean actually getting to relax for a minute?

*Sigh* Those were the days. Why, oh why, do I keep thinking that taking on class schedules that suck actually “won’t be so bad?”

I was scheduled for two six week classes this summer. Not so bad, considering I did it last year and it was gravy. This summer would be a Nutrition class first, a nice easy class that didn’t really do much for me except check off another prerequisite in the list of classes to prep for veterinary school.

Well, my easy “skate through” class turned out to be 1) one of the most informative classes I’ve ever taken in the field of personal health; and 2) one of the most stressful classes I’ve ever taken in the field of personal health. Don’t get me wrong, the class was SUPER easy and the instructor was amazing – one of the nicest people on the planet, I’m convinced. Seriously, the woman brought in homemade popcorn for us because she just wanted to bring us a treat, a courtesy not seen extended since the 3rd grade. However, behind the warm fuzzy persona was a diabolical health nut set to destroy all the food consumption conventions held dear to all of us since we were weaned off the bottle (or booby, if your mama was into that sort of thing). The feeling of ease I looked forward to in terms of class schedule and reduced intellectual challenge was handily replaced by the immeasurable doom of the course’s content.

In six short weeks, this woman has scared me off eating anything doesn’t have an “organic” label on it. Actually, she did a good job of scaring me out of eating anything that doesn’t come from the outer ring of the grocery store (fine by me, I was tired of mops and zip lock baggies for dinner anyway – oh, snap!). T and I have even started shopping at the local hippie food store, buying organic produce and all natural, whole grain crap. Don’t be surprised when you get the invite to the all night Kumbaya sing-a-long at our house – I’m sure it’s right around the corner.

[I had originally intended to write a post that went into GREAT detail about all of the horrors of commercial food production, but I’m still having nightmares about it, so I’ll spare you the grisly, nasty facts. Well, except one: if you think the mass-produced milk you drink doesn’t have mucus and/or blood in it, you’re horribly deluded. Can you see, now, why I’m mourning the loss of many years of ignorant bliss?]

These revelations have had both positive and negative effects on my lifestyle. Shopping trips have become exponentially simplified, since the square footage of store I need to traverse has been reduced significantly. The amount of decisions I need to make has also been drastically cut as now I eat salads and some form of meat for dinner and cereal/yogurt/fruit for breakfast. This is nice. I hate making decisions. And, through eating better, I can perhaps get a better handle on losing some of that “Freshman 15” I gained when I started school. OK, Freshman 25…whatever.

But what I gain in a more efficient, nutritious and better digested diet I lose in psychosocial well-being. What it really comes down to is, what I would kill to sit down to a nice meal of Kraft macaroni and cheese dinner and a bag of Oreos. But noooooooooo! Anything made with any sort of hydrogenated oils (partially or fully hydrogenated) is bad for you. [I won’t be discussing why that is in this forum, but go google it some time. You’ll see.] Do you know how freaking hard it is to break an addiction to all things hydrogenated? Seriously, start reading your labels. A large majority of your processed foods contain these evil fiends. Even Triscuits, yes Triscuits contain the awful stuff. If you do start checking labels, don’t blame me for your subsequent depression, though. I’m still recovering myself.

I got out of this class a much wiser person. As with anything, I suppose, with wisdom comes a sadness attributed only to innocence lost, in this case, a dietary innocence. And to think that I didn’t even need this class to satisfy a degree requirement, but in anticipation of a larger calling, a fact that may prove even more depressing. I knew veterinary school would cost me a fortune, to the tune of a mortgage payment, but I didn’t expect to lose my Oreos, too.

Next posting…physics class or Romper Room?