IT'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN!!

Attention, attention everyone...I am going to visit Loverboy this Wednesday! The day has (almost) finally arrived! [As I typed that I couldn't help but sing Europe's 1986 hit "The Final Countdown" to myself. If you've never heard the song, shame on you. I was only a year old when it came out and I still know the song. I suggest either downloading it or watching the complete 3 seasons of the late, great Arrested Development because every time Job gets on stage to do one of his magic shows he plays the song in the background...plus it is the greatest show ever!] [I should say that after I typed that I considered making this whole post about how awesome Arrested Development is. You should see for yourself. When you have free time and want to laugh, go here...P.S. make sure you have lots of free time because you are not going to want to stop watching.]

I don't remember what I wanted to write about now. Ah yes, I'm going to see Loverboy Wednesday! Speaking of Loverboys, I've decided I need to get some friends with their own. Here's why:

Saturday night my roomies and I went out to Stone Mountain's to watch the laser show. It was a beautiful night and I loved the idea of sitting with the girls watching the Park's rendition of "music videos" cast onto the slab of a mountain by lasers. We had planned the night about a week prior to going and throughout the week I had made it very clear that I would love to go out as long as I wasn't out too late because I had a lot of work to do over the weekend. I even offered to drive myself. Nah, one said, it won't be necessary. It's not like we're going to do anything afterwards, the other claimed. Little did I know...they were planning on meeting boys there (dressed in kilts, might I add but that is a whole different story in itself). During the cute little show I did not mind that I was pretty much sitting alone, but afterwards, when we just had to go back to the guys' campground to flirt with the guys, I minded. After nearly 2 hours of sitting by my lonesome (the girls were trying to mack on the guys and vice versa) we finally left so we could get home by 1 am. Insert picture of me scowling here.

The moral of the story is, if they weren't trying to hooch themselves out, I probably would have had a better time and let's face it, when Gypsy Queen has a good time, everyone has a good time. Know what I'm saying?

Speaking of hoochies, in lieu of my impending visit with Loverboy, I dyed my hair yesterday. It's so dark that when I looked in the mirror I thought I was my sister, which was probably not the best thought to have while making kissy faces at myself. I've also been using this lotion daily for about a week and a half so I finally don't look nearly transparent. I've also been playing around with the idea of shaving Wednesday morning too. Loverboy's got such a wonderful girlfriend ;) I'll try to blog about my visit when I get back...or not because, let's face it, there is a good chance that it will be a little risque for my readers.

Hi My Name is Gypsy Queen and I'll be the one Standing in the Front of the Classroom...

Every Thursday for (roughly) the past 8 weeks I have stood in front of two classes full of students answering their questions about what they "learned" in class and discussing plans of attack to come up with solutions to their homework problems. I am a graduate assistant to two professors at the university. I have (somehow) taken the time to learn the first names of (most*) of the students, but today I realized that some have not bothered learning mine. How did I figure this out, you ask? Here's your answer:

Ok so one train is leaving Chicago at 4:13 pm at a speed of 51 mph and the other is leaving from Dallas at 8:07 am...wait a minute, wrong audience....Here's the answer I meant to give:

Ok so, I was sitting at my desk tonight minding my own business writing up my homework for tomorrow and all of the sudden my phone rings. A phone number came up that I did not recognize, sticking to my To Do List I answered it. Within the first 12 seconds I knew it was somebody looking for a tutor so being the money whore that I am (just currently, not usually) I jumped up in excitement nodding and saying Uh-huh Uh-huh to everything she said so as not to lose her. After about 3 nods (that she obviously could not see) I recognized her voice and placed her as one of my students. She continued our pseudo-conversation (at this point I still had only said Uh-huh Uh-huh) by saying, "I have this test tomorrow at 10:10 am and I've been cramming all night. I have a few loose ends I want to tie up so can you meet at 7:30 tomorrow morning?" At this point I was positive that she was one of my students. Needless to say, I was stunned: one of my students called me (without knowing who I was) and offered to pay me to meet with her the morning of her test (at 7:30 am!?!?!). I did what any self-respecting person would do and said I had class at 8:00 am so I couldn't (I really do have class at 8 so I didn't have to lie, but I could have obviously given her numerous different reasons). Then she hung up on me.

Moral of the story: she should have come to my office hours for a FREE tutoring session with me.

*By most of my students I mean the ones that actually show up.

Running Backwards

Yesterday was a bad day. I knew it was going to be a bad day before I got out of bed. I woke up feeling the early symptoms of some lurking illness. It was too early for me to tell if I was getting a cold or the stomach flu. Yes, both have extremely different symptoms, but I really could not tell so I took a shot of orange juice then followed it with a dose of Pepto. As the day progressed I realized that it was in fact a cold. It's 80 degrees here!! How am I getting a cold? Then again, I seem to always get one in the summer so I can't be too shocked.

While I suffered through the day with my pre-cold, I took an in-class exam (aka my first "real" test in graduate school), taught a faux practice lesson in front of my peers, and paid my phone bill. I did not enjoy completing any of those tasks. As if I wasn't feeling low enough, one of my professors handed back a homework that we turned in last week. I did alright, but I was extremely pissed after comparing my grade with a peer that I helped out. His score was significantly better than mine, yet I helped him finish his the day it was turned in. It was due on Friday, but he thought it was due Monday so he came to school with slightly less than half of it complete. After I reminded him it was due that day, he freaked out so I offered to help with all of the problems he did not understand. Apparently, I communicate better orally than in writing.

When I finished at school I went to the store to stock up on different vitamins. As I walked in, it hit me that I was actually chasing the lows and running from the highs. My day wasn't so bad, I was just building it up to be that way. In some sick, twisted way I was making my day worse on purpose. As I walked through the aisles, I realized that it was not the first time that I've chased down the lows. I've done it before, but why? How could I think that I could make myself feel better by making myself feel bad? I hate to say this, but maybe it's a...female thing? My dad always calls it "feeling sorry for myself". He's right. That was what I was doing, but still, why does that make me feel [faux] good? After making myself feel low for most of the day, I decided to finally book my flight home for winter break.

My hypothesis: maybe I make myself feel low so that when I finally knock myself out of it, I feel much better about the things that I thought were crappy in my life prior. Example: I was holding off booking my flight home for winter break because I am having monetary issues. I was unnecessarily stressing myself out by avoiding the issue. After my bought of "Sorryness" yesterday, I finally came to terms with the fact that I needed help with my situation. This morning I woke up feeling boatloads better and as I got out of bed I knew that today was going to be a better day. So far, it has been better. I made a delicious turkey sandwich for lunch today and everyone knows [except for my roomies] how wonderful a delicious turkey sandwich can be. Oh, and I also picked up a student for tutoring. We are starting tomorrow, which means...I can pick up some groceries tomorrow! Yay, I don't have to eat spaghetti for the rest of the week!

A Little Anecdote that I Just Remembered

The calculus students that I help have online homework called WebWork. Whenever they have trouble with a problem, they can email the professor and [unbeknownst to them] it's emailed to me too. Well, WebWork can be a little tricky sometimes and it does not accept answers that are not entered in perfectly. Usually the emails are: "Um, Dr. ____, I know the answer to this problem is ___, but WebWork is not accepting it. Will you still give me credit?" His response is usually, "Um no, ____ your answer was wrong. You were missing ___." Anyway, I usually don't read the emails, because [to be completely honest] I don't really care, but today there was a really short one so as I moved the arrow to the big red X to delete it, I read:

Um, Dr. ____ how do I insert a "pie" into WebWork?*

Baaaaaaaahahaha! [cricket, cricket, cricket] Ok, ok that's not funny to most of you [if any], but when I read it I pictured the girl on the computer screen handing her homework a pumpkin pie so as to coerce it into accepting her answer.

*Pi [not pie] is a number and it's usually not [if ever] preceded by "a".

Teeheehee. "A pie"...hilarious!!!

How Many More of These do I Have to Take You Ask...

Test #1 down...I survived. It was a takehome test given to our class (ie 5 students) on Friday. It was not like the Yay Takehome Test Alright!! that we all loved in high school...wait did we get those in high school? I feel like I've been in school for so long that I cannot even correctly place when I did what. Anyway, it was a Son of a Bitch! No Books, No Notes, No Outside Sources Looong, Difficult Test. The rule was once we opened the [stapled closed] test, we could not open a book of any type, talk to anyone [or breathe] until we were done. I decided to take it in my office on Sunday morning [that was a lie. I decided to take it in the school library on Sunday morning, but apparently the school does not like students to study until 1 pm so I was forced to do it in my office]. When I finished I slid it under my professor's door and bolted out of the building.

We got our tests back today and I actually did better than I thought. After two days of picking out all of my mistakes in my head, I figured that I got somewhere around a 75. You can imagine my surprise when I saw the big, bold 77 on the top of the page!! To most, that would sound like a HORRIBLE score, but this is grad school bitches, my 77 was the second highest score [yes, out of 5 people, so what]! When I went to discuss the test with my professor, the best 4 [and a half, one was a contraction] words I've heard in months came out of his mouth, "You're really coming along." I needed that.

I have two more tests this week and then I am finally taking a break on Saturday. I finally caved and agreed to hang out with my fellow mathletes Saturday afternoon. I did not commit to staying for the night as I have yet to see what their idea of fun is. It's going to be tough for them to top my idea of a successful Saturday night...cleaning the house, calling Loverboy and passing out on the couch alone with an empty beer bottle [yes just one] on the coffee table in front of me.

I started running again last week. I'm [FINALLY] going to visit Loverboy in 22 days and I want to be physically fit just in case he happens to see my nakey. I'm slowly starting to realize that it's cheaper to produce my own energy through physical activity than buying Red Bull....slowly, I said. I found out today that one of the kids I've been tutoring transferred to another school and will not need me again until January. There goes my grocery money :( I wish that would have happened about 2 weeks ago. At that time I was getting emailed like crazy from students looking for tutors and silly me, I turned them down. I wonder if it would be weird for me to re-email them and ask if they are still looking. I'm going to do it if it is weird or not...I was just wondering, though.

Fun Fact [everybody take out a pen and paper and write this down]: A prime number greater than 1,000 digits long is called a TITANIC PRIME. To date there are approximately 5,000 certified [aka known] titanic primes.