Finals Week....

Day one: My first exam is at 8 am today. I woke up at 5:30 and I am surprisingly alert. Unfortunately, being alert does not imply that I am ready.

Exam number 2 is going to be a take home test given to us tomorrow. That scares me a little because the professor can put more difficult questions on it.

Exam 3 (my last) is on Monday in the afternoon. Afterwards, my sister and I are packing up the car and getting the h out of here.

Question Sharing

As mentioned my friend from home and I have been sending each other odd "test questions" to answer on our downtime. She recently sent me 2 questions, both of which I enjoyed answering so I thought I would pass them along to you onlookers:

1) Who did you share your first kiss with? Make a prediction as to what he/she is doing nowadays.

2) Put these professions in order starting with the one you would most likely do: gyno, king crab fisherman, chimp trainer, dentist in Mexico City, dairy farmer, stun gun/tazer inspector, Wal-Mart return counter person

My answers*:
1) A: The first person I kissed was C. D. It was in the 6th grade at a Halloween party. Him and I were "dating" and our friends plotted against us by forcing us to play spin the bottle. It just so happened that when he spun the bottle it landed on me (meant to be, eh?). It was a puckered lip fish-kiss...and it was glorious.

I predict that he is in a near catatonic state, sitting in a Barcalounger (note: i had to look that word up) in his parent's basement that is facing a gigantic poster of me in the 6th grade. He is and will forever be pining over me and that one amazing kiss we shared. He will never get a job because of his obsession with me. He does however, continuously apply at Island Tanning in CC, where I held my first job at age 14 as a receptionist/bed cleaner. He is so demented that he has yet to realize that Island Tanning closed down 6 years ago shortly after I moved away.


2) A:
1. King Crab Fisherman-I pick this first if and only if I could star in The Discovery Channel's: Deadliest Catch. I want to be famous someday and I will do whatever it takes to get my foot in the door.

2. Chimp Trainer-Yes, I will likely get poop thrown at me, but the things are just so darn cute AND I am not opposed to throwing my own poop back at them.

3. Wal-Mart Return Counter Person-Seeing as I despise Wal-Mart, I would have zero desire to be good at this job and slash or would get a kick at being rude to rude customers and denying them a return for bogus reasons. I would be the law. Because of me they would be stuck with defective "shower massagers" and the like.

4. Tazer/stungun tester-I put this job in the middle as hopefully after holding this postion for a short period of time, I will become numb to all of the horrible sights, smells and tasks that I will perform in the following jobs

5. Dairy Farmer- Sure I would get all the free milk I could ever ask for, but I only ask for one Milk Chug a week to pour into my cereal. I don't mind the udders, and in fact might enjoy stroking them to get the milk out, HOWEVER, the constant smell of manure would make me gag so much that I would probably sustain severe esophogeal injuries.

6. Dentist in Mexico City-I did a little research and actually Mexico City has a pretty strong economy so the quality of teeth might not be extremely poor, HOWEVER, the thought of putting my hands in anybody's mouth gives me the heebies. The only joy I would get out of this job would be from yelling at people for not flossing enough (while knowing that I have zero intention of doing it myself).

7. Gyno-As mentioned, sticking my hands in anybody's mouth gives me the heebies, and quite frankly the thought of sticking my hand in a vagina gives me the bleeping JEEBIES!

*Note: I apologize if my answers offend you in anyway. It was not my intention. If you hold any one of these professions, my hat is off to you as I know that you must be a much stronger person than I.

Mark Your Calendars

As I am coming home soon I would like to propose to my family member readers that we get together one day to enjoy each other's company. It has come to my attention that Mother's Day falls on the weekend that I get home. What better day for us to spend together? In past years we have met at Cantigny Park and enjoyed the beautiful flowers (and tanks if you're into that sort of thing) so I would like to put a suggestion in the box that we spend the afternoon together there. I know one of you would love the flower gardens! So what do you say family? If you have another suggestion, please feel free to let it be known.

Did I mention I miss you?

What Does Your Postcard Say?

While talking to one of my roomies yesterday, I was informed of Post Secret. The blog owner apparently has been up and running for several years (roomie said she has been a faithful reader for 3 YEARS!). The gist of the site is, people write secrets/confessions on fancily decorated postcards and anonymously send them to him. He then sorts through the thousands he receives and posts a handful on his blog each week. This has become such a popular trend that he has published at least two books cataloguing some of the more interesting postcards.

Roomie just so happened to have one of the books so naturally I dropped what I was doing (homework) and read the book cover to cover while soaking in the tub last night. It was a wonderful read. I felt like I was connecting with millions of people through their secrets yet none of us know each other.

If I were to send in a postcard today it would read: "Saying you love me says nothing! Show me!" I would also probably write it in a scarlet red marker and decorate it with hearts. On the bottom would be me depicted in stick figure form YELLING the words in a cartoon dialogue bubble. Across from me would be Loverboy (again stick-figurized) with a big question mark above his head and his palms up in the air as if he has zero idea what I am talking about.

What would yours say?

If I Was Food What Would I Be...

Answer (from Loverboy): Kung Pao Chicken because you're hot!

If that's not pure romance ladies, then I don't know what is.

In other news, my dad visited me last night. He has a meeting today in the big city so he flew in a day early and drove here to take me to dinner. I am assuming most of you are familiar with how big my dad is...not huge, but you know what I mean. Anyway, you can imagine how humorous it was for me to watch him slowly walk up to my door trying to stretch the pain out of his legs from driving two hours in a brand new Mustang. I didn't have the heart to ask if he requested the itty-bitty sports car from the rental agency or if they pegged him as a middle-aged man looking to test drive a mid-life crisisesque car (yes I made that word up, but it works). Regardless, it was funny.

We had a nice daddy-daughter date. He took me to a New Orleans style restaurant (at which I had a side of collard greens, yummy; if you haven't tried them yet I suggest you do). We talked about my future, his future, and the rest of our family's. He also told me there is a rumor going around that my grandparents are heading back to the Midwest soon, which means that I might get to see them when I come home in a few weeks. Correction: I am leaving for home in exactly two weeks from today! Holy crap that's so soon (and yet not soon enough).

On that note, I guess I should probably be studying and slash or looking for a summer job. Know of a place that suits me....or that is hiring?

If I Were to Write a Test Right Now

The first question would be...

1. Would you rather*:
(a) Eat fish sticks for lunch and dinner everyday for a month (February counts). Fish sticks for breakfast would be optional.
(b) Eat a meal from Sonic that I purchased and sent to you on the next business day (note: I would probably buy it on a Saturday)
(c) Become a vegan

My best friend from IL and I worked together for nearly 6 years and during our downtime (i.e. the majority of the day) we would write each other faux mid-terms that included questions like the one above. While feeling low the other day, I wrote her a test. It was the first one in over a year. I had such a hard time thinking of things to write that it almost made me feel worse. I used to be so creative (or so I thought). Unfortunately, now my brain is so math-focused that I find it difficult to think about anything else. I hate it!

In an attempt to prevent further deterioration of my creativity, I signed up for a French class next semester. One of our degree requirements is to obtain the ability to read in at least one other language. The department strongly recommends that we take our language classes during the summer, but I am sticking it to the man and taking it when I want to take it.

I remember going through undergrad thinking why do I have to take all of these nonsense classes? How is Tolkien and Fantasy Literature going to help me in the future? When am I ever going to pull out my Women in Scripture notes? Now I know the answer: to keep me sane. If I took all classes in one area back then, I would have never finished. Plus, enrolling in those random classes helped maintain the flow of my creative juices.

2. Life is a Highway. Naturally, you want to drive it all night long. What kind of car do you want to drive it in?



*Answer: (a) but for breakfast you choose to eat a meal high in fiber to cleanse your insides

Where's Gloria Gaynor When You Need Her?

There are less than two weeks left of school...then finals week (blah!). In order to get myself through it I have allowed "I Will Survive" to play in the back of my head throughout the day. Luckily, I got through my presentation last week without any noticeable mistakes. Unfortunately, there were so many questions to be answered throughout the presentation that I did not get to finish. Thus, I have round 2 to look forward to tomorrow afternoon. On the upside, I have two other people working with me to get through this paper so I hopefully I can count on them to help field the questions from the audience.

I cried in a professor's office yesterday. It wasn't a hearty cry. It was a I'm so frustrated that my eyes fill up with tears and they drop down my face while I'm talking/listening to you type of cry. That happened at about 11 am so they pretty much set the tone for the rest of my day at school. In total, my eyes leaked out my body's frustrations five times yesterday (all of which occurred at school). In my defense one of the five times, I sort of laugh-cried. I was talking to one of the few other girls in the department and we started laughing about the fact that I couldn't stop them from coming. We also talked about our professors' goal of breaking us graduate students down to nothing so that we lose all confidence just so hopefully years from now we will truly know what we know. I think they are doing a great job of reaching their goal.

Enough about that. My life has not been totally upsetting these past few weeks. For instance, I have had great pleasure observing a pair of my mathlete peers that recently started dating. The girl is 20 and the guy is roughly 26. I guess you could say that they make a good couple since they both apparently give the BIGGEST most obnoxious looking hickeys I have ever seen [on a person's neck]. Oh how I love being surrounded by socially awkward people that reach their hickey stage in their early to mid 20s.

I Wish I Had the Option of Conning Somebody into Calling Me Out of School...

I have to give a presentation in my research group today. There are roughly 10-12 people in the group, 3 of which are professors. Our group is "studying" a newer area of mathematics called Tropical Geometry (as my Russian professor likes to say, it's "hot"). I use the term studying loosely as understanding anything that goes on in our meetings requires several years of prerequisite courses that neither I nor 4 of the other first year graduate students in there have been exposed to. I guess you could say the purpose of the group is to throw us unexposed people in with the experienced people so we can talk and get a feel for what is going on in mathematics today.

Either way, I am extremely nervous. I do not mind talking in front of people...as long as I know what it is I am talking about (makes sense, right?). As a group we are going through a paper titled "Automorphisms of Free Groups and Outer Space". If you can tell me what those words mean I would be grateful as I have no idea. Ok, correction: I know what the words mean but when putting them together I become lost.

The goal of my presentation is to get an idea of what a specific example of "outer space" looks like. Unfortunately this is not outer space in the sense of astronomy, but in topological space (again, somebody please tell me what that is because I am not entirely sure.)

I planned on putting the finishing touches on my presentation last night, but after taking a test, spending 10 hours at school and returning home to realize that I left my house key in my office, I knew that doing anything other than laying in the tub and putting songs onto my new Ipod (yay I got it finally!) would cause a mini-nervous breakdown. Instead, I decided to go to sleep at 8:30 last night, which I was able to do with ease and without taking any kind of sleeping medication. So, I woke up at 5:30 this morning and I have felt great all day....until about 15 minutes ago when I realized that I have less than 2 hours until my presentation.

Now I want to go home, crawl into bed and hide under the covers...Save me!

Half Empty or Half Full?

Actually it looks to me like it's either 3/4 empty or 1/4 full. I'm swaying towards 1/4 full*. If you are wondering, the answer is: Yes this is the exact wine glass I was looking for this weekend. I spent a decent chunk of my weekend scouring the area for this beautiful, large wine glass and I was without luck. Last night I even went online and searched for places to order from. Unfortunately, and rightly so, not many places deliver cheap wine glasses. Where did I find it and its partner glass (that's right I bought two)? Kroger, the local grocery store! What are the odds that on the day they decided to have a produce sale (big enough to mention in my blog), I happen to venture off into the wine section where they have a gorgeous wine display with these glasses used as fillers? As a mathematician, I naturally calculated said odds and here are the results: pretty high. Seeing as the wine aisle is two aisles before the ice cream aisle, I walk past them every time I go to Kroger, which is at least twice a week (hey a girl has to have something regular in her life). Plus, the glasses have probably been there the entire time that I have been shopping there, and I have never noticed until now. Well back to my school work...

*It doesn't matter. What does is that the bottle is EMPTY! :(

Feeling Low?

Then run from it while listening to Ingrid Michaelson's The Way I Am. Try not to belt it out. Just try. I heart her voice and I think you would too.

One of my guilty pleasures is listening to my Ipod. It's my escape from EVERYONE here. At least I try to make it my escape. My Ipod is several years old so the battery does not hold charge as long as I would like. Oftentimes when I am in my office I will just put the ear buds in even if the battery is dead to give the appearance that I do not want to be bothered. I figured it would be the nice of way of saying "Leave me alone, I don't want to talk to you or anyone else" without having to say it. However, seeing as nearly everyone here is socially awkward they don't read the sign so they just stand next to me until I acknowledge them. Sometimes I make it a game. How long will you stand next to me quietly waiting while I don't look up????

Anyway, I recently gave in and searched for a refurbished Ipod in my price range. Lucky me I found a good deal on an 8 GB Nano that should be delivered this week. The only pitfall is I could only find one in a gaudy sky blue tone. As long as I can actually tune people out with it instead of faking it, I'll be happy.

In other news, my wine obsession has been going strong. I actually do not have my own wine glasses, though. I have been using my roomies', which are plastic (thankfully so...she is clumsy when sober). If I am going to do this, I need the right equipment. What I really want is an unreasonably large wine glass of my own. My guests can use the plastic cups...unless any of you readers comes over to have a glass...in that case, maybe I should get two. I went on a mini hunt for my glass of choice yesterday, but came home with no such luck. Any suggestions?

Oh, Potential New Roommate stopped by Friday afternoon. She is a reporter for a local newspaper. She seemed like somebody I would get along really well with i.e. somebody that I would become friends with regardless of us living together. She seemed to really like the place, area, us, ...however she wants to think about the cost before she makes her decision. Keep your fingers crossed.