momiji

E-mail count: 5

Yeah, not much, I know, but I have this crippling irrational fear that the profs are going to send me some totally harsh e-mail back telling me that I suck and to never speak to them again (look, I said it was irrational). So far, I've had one 'ask me again in the fall' and one 'possibly', who still hasn't gotten back to me with a definite (if I don't have a reply by tomorrow evening, I'm e-mailing her again - only prof who I'm not afraid is going to eat me alive).

In related news, I learned today that I am not actually totally screwed into getting into Microbi here - I thought they ranked purely by total average in the five required classes, and then took the top eighty or so of that to admit, which, with a quoted admissions average of 82%, would mean doing stupidly well in the almighty weeder that is Chem 233. Luckily, this isn't what they do - they take a single class, rank everyone by grade, and then the top eighty-two people get two points, the next forty-two get one, and everyone after that gets zero. They do this for each of the five required classes, add the points up, and then take the top eighty-two of that - combined average is only used to decide if there's ties at the cut-off point. Apparently the top eighty-two cut-off in Chem 233 is somewhere around 60% - so I actually may have a chance here.

This spawned out of one of the many late-night/early-morning conversations I had sitting around my kitchen table last summer. I kept meaning to write it down, but I never remembered when I was actually near a computer. Now, nine months later, I can remember maybe a quarter of the guidelines, but I thought of it today during my bio tutorial, so I decided I might as well record what I do remember.

The rules for our island utopia:
-Though the utopia was founded by scientists, we welcome you crazy, crazy Arts kids.
-However, there is to be no arguing about which is superior, arts or science
-Claiming your work is superior to others because it's more practical will also get you tossed (you goddamn engineer)
-Attire for scientists: lab coat, and for the vision impaired, the old coke-bottle style glasses. For the non-vision impaired, lab goggles. And I don't mean the neat Bono-wraparound style of goggles - the big, thick, silly looking ones.
-Attire for those in Arts (you have no good collective noun): togas and masks - I think you get to design your own, but it's been a while.
-Necessary bureaucratic duties (ie, making sure we have food and don't all starve to death) will be rotated - there will be no set formal government.
-The main form of punishment was being expelled from the island by way of being tossed in the surrounding ocean - there were some harsher ones that I think involved fire and/or attack penguins, but this may be wishful remembering on my part.

This is less than half of what we had, but I really can't remember more. If they suddenly come to mind, I'll post them, I guess.

We are now Moveable Type 3.3 good to go, complete with a few new features - feeds, and a search function over in the side bar. I still need to do some file and code clean-up, but that shouldn't affect anything on the main page.

Apparently all I need to do to cheer myself up when I'm being grumpy about people is think 'I should break their kneecaps'. Apparently there is something inherently funny about kneecap-breaking to me.

My big accomplishment of the day (other than getting out of bed in time for classes) - installing Moveable Type 3.3 on my server. Not running it directly yet, because I need to relearn the template tags and get one of the spam-blocking plug-ins to work properly, but it's up. Also, I discovered why my printer got jammed - there's a pencil stuck way down by the paper feeds - no idea how it got there, and I'm going to need a screwdriver to get it out, it looks like.

I was totally going to play some video games, but watching old X-Files eps and eating sounds like a much better plan right now.

I love how Shadowrun doesn't even try to pretend it's anything other than Gibson for the D&D crowd. I keep snickering reading over gear lists, because I either see something that is either straight out of one of the Sprawl novels, or something clearly D&D (Bows in the cyberpunk 2070? Sure!). I've got a pretty straight up hard cyberpunk character - skinny little hacker chick, with guns ('cause dude, you don't wander around on your own without some weapon, and my two boys both have knives), no magic or technomancy. We've got one mage (ork, trained by elves, with a Logic of 1 - it's going to be special), and a charismatic elf face (a term who's meaning I understand, but none the less makes me snicker inside).

...It's going to take me forever to gear up this girl. Mostly because I'm really horribly indecisive.

(Also, speaking of Gibson - I had a dream last night that crossed DDS, Count Zero and the Coldfire Trilogy. That...was a bit weird)

I meant to post this like a week and a half ago, but I kept forgetting. Monday is my birthday - I'm going to spend the evening going out to dinner with a few friends here, but I kind of wanted to have a little party or something. I have no idea when/where works out best for people, though - thoughts?

And, augh, I remember now why I had so much trouble writing Asher the first time - I'm too close to him, so it takes a lot of effort for me to not take things that other characters say about him IC personally. He's an asshole sometimes, and there are consequences for that.

For now, off to watch more Project Runway and play some DDS, I think - homework for the day is done, yaaaay.

I've tried to keep the ranting here to a minimum, but I need to froth at the mouth some for like...two minutes.

I've been feeling increasingly down about lab positions and my inability to find one. There are still faculty members I haven't e-mailed, but honestly, the thought of spending a whole afternoon reading papers to write an e-mail that I get no reply to (and which has a decent chance of having wound up being deleted without being looked at) just makes me want to cry.

This is not being helped at all by Yana, who got a great position with tons of help from me (as to why I didn't go for it myself - not my department), and now won't shut up about it. At all. I hate to say it, but the clueless academic with no life outside their research or lab is not cute or endearing, it's boring and irritating and makes them into the kind of people who don't get invited out at all because nobody wants to be around them. And it's doubly irritating when I have spent the last month trying to find something myself with no success.

I snapped at her yesterday - if she does it again, I'm going to be sorely tempted to hit her and/or throw things.

About eleven hours in, right after the first Anahata bit - not actually too spoiler-heavy, if only because no major plot-bombs have been dropped, but I'll cut anyway.
( Mm, Atlus crack )

Dear Yaoicon, please stop trying to guilt me into going to ToA.

I really do want to - it's Shoujocon, pretty much, and Shoujocon was my favorite little con ever. But I don't have $350 to drop on a plane ticket to San Mateo, and there are more people going who _don't_ want me to go than people who want me to go, versus Sakuracon, where I don't think there's anyone who doesn't want me to go.

And yes. This post is totally just me trying to justify my decisions to myself XD;

Having now played through most of Case 4 of Phoenix Wright, I now suddenly see where all the yaoi for this series comes from. Phoenix? Gay. Edgeworth? Really gay (and endearingly pompous, but that's an entry for another day) This game? Gay gay gay. More so than Elijah Wood.

It's also wonderfully crack, and I'd probably still be playing right now if Matt's DS battery hadn't run down - hope someone has a charger >.> And yes. I am at Kei-kon, it is two am, and our hotel has free wireless. Which is inexplicably not loading some sites, but whatever. I should probably sleep.