It’s December? How did this happen?

Will someone please explain to me how it’s already the end of the year and finals are already here?

Man, I thought that three day school week would never end!

Okay, through some strange accident of scheduling, I have a mere three day school week. Yes, that is a good thing in certain ways. For example, this weekend I’m going up to St. Pete to see Jodie and the extra time off during this holiday weekend will make things slightly easier. Also, since most of my classes this semester seem to involve copious amounts of writing, the extra days off will be put to much good use.

Then there are the possibly unwelcome side effects of such a short week. In recent years I have developed a notoriously short attention span (curse you, Internet!) and unless I make a very good effort to organize my free time, I will likely squander it all away. Most people, I imagine, have experienced that. You find you have an extra day off with some project deadline looming and suddenly you feel as if you won the temporal lottery.

The things you will be able to do with all that extra time! And just as soon as you play through a couple more stages in that new game you bought, you’ll get right to it… Yes, of course, as soon as you get off the phone with your friend you’ll get right on it. Right, no problem, as soon as you finish watching that documentary on modern plumbing on The History Channel, you’ll be all over that project. Okay, fine, you just need a short nap to recover from all that frantic activity and you’ll get to work.

So many free days lost in similar fashion…

Update: Oh, yeah, happy blog anniversary.

Ohhhh yeah.

Few things are as sweet as kicking your last final’s ass and realizing that you won’t need to write any more papers on bad poetry for at least a few months.

Hm…. Now I just need to find something to do until the Fall.

Anyone have any suggestions?

I cannot believe how long I have had to write this simple “3 to 4 page paper” and how little work I have gotten done. It is supposed to be a simple analysis of a certain poem. I would rather not name the poem, but I will just say that it is, without a doubt, the most annoying poem in all modern literature.

Now, normally I like to write good papers. Few people set out to write bad papers. I may not be quite academic journal material, but I usually try hard to find out my own twist on the work and back it up with solid, if sometimes unlikely, evidence. Of course, every once in a while, you find yourself in a tight spot. Either you were too busy with other classes to write it, or maybe your pet iguana was sick and you had to nurse it back to health instead of writing, or maybe you just got drunk one too many times over spring break and forgot all about it. Whichever the cause might be, at times we simple aren’t able to finish our research properly and must resort to outright BS’ing our way through page after page. I’ve done it a few times and have always found such a sense of relief for at least having handed in something.

Sadly, this paper that I am currently anguishing over deflects any and all attempts at BS’ing. It is impervious to all such attacks. This poem about some damn bird is slowly, but steadily, turning me into a big pile of gibbering mush.

I am not even sure why I find the poem so hard to analyze. It might be because of the gushing praise my professor gave the poem before the assignment. When reading it, I expected to find myself lifted up into the heavens by radiant beings of light; smiling at me approvingly for having learned some fundamental truth about the universe. Instead, I sat staring at the paper in front of me, wondering if maybe the professor had stapled the wrong poem onto the assignment sheet before sending it off to the copy room.

As I write this, it is 2:51 in the morning and I am preparing myself for another frantic session of sifting through the poem’s numerous stanzas in a vain quest for some transcendent experience. And in the unlikely case that my professor were to ever read this posting, I would like to sincerely thank him for causing me so much stress through his selection of poetry.

I have a feeling he did it just to screw with us since he’s retiring this semester and we’re among the last classes he’ll ever get to “challenge.”

Thanks again, Professor Waugh.

And screw you, Percy Bysshe Shelly!!!

As my spring break draws gradually to an end, I marvel at just how nice it was to sleep normal hours again. This semester has been amazingly stressfull. I suppose it’s all the papers I’ve had to write, but I guess the wacky schedule also isn’t helping. Morning and night classes on the same day is just not fun (especially when the night class is one you aren’t exactly interested in).

Spent all day working on templates for my friend’s MT weblog while listening to news about the war in the background. Such a weird day.

Today I found myself needing to waste time at a computer lab at school for the first time in a few years. Strangely, the one place where the hours used to pass by without notice no longer has the same effect.

I feel useless in here without my browser, my contacts, and my news reader. First off, the only browser choices are IE6 and Netscape 4. Talk about choosing between the lesser of two evils… I’m at least connected to AIM through the java version, but most of my daytime contacts use ICQ. And I’m not even gonna attempt to get on Usenet.

Blah, I’m bored. Someone get online!

Answer: Probably not the day before school starts.

It’s amazing how tired you can get when actually trying to do well in your classes. Sure, it felt good to not freak out during midterms this past week, but then I look back at how little extra-curricular stuff I’ve done and it amazes me.

I haven’t written a single line of code in months now and I can feel the urge starting to gnaw at me. Of course, if I were to get into some project I would probably get a little too distracted and neglect my studies. Maybe I’ll just stick to the endless Photoshop projects I’ve been working on for friends and family. *cringe*

Regardless, I need some sort of creative outlet or I’m going to burst!

School starts tomorrow.

How did this happen? Why did no one tell me?

Did I register for the proper classes? Did my check arrive on time?

Why have I not picked up my parking sticker yet?

Will I need to spend $1200 on bloody textbooks again?!

Is that really hot English professor still teaching there? What the heck was her name again?

One of these years I really should consider graduating. Don’t you think?