Dun dun dun...

School, food, work. Wah!

I can never tell if I like the craziness that school demands or hate it. I like the variety, the different people, the SOMETHING I have to attend or finish or otherwise engage in. I hate the weekend work that steals funtime away, and the fact that by the time I get home, exercise a bit, eat dinner and relax for a few minutes it's already 8 and I don't want to start on anything that's going to take hours and hours.
Working on my presentation has been at least a little more fun, since PowerPoint is better than writing a paper or answering problems. Pictures and graphs, yay! It's taking forever though, and I only have tonight to rehearse. Gack. I also got up at 6 this morning to get a bit done, and it's the first time I've been up before the sun in quite a while. Ah, change in routine. Probably good.

It's restaurant week here in the city and, knowing that no one else would have the initiative to set up a reservation, Jessie and Rob informed us of our dinner at Smith & Wollensky. Very smart of them. It also was at 8:30 so everyone could make it.
We got about $120/person worth of food for $50/person. Definitely worth it. Wouldn't go if there wasn't a huge discount like that. It was all snazzy, with the waiter darting in to pour your wine when you set the empty glass on the table. Filet mignon, delicious - although next time I'll listen to Rob and get something interesting. He got corned beef and it was SO good!

I also just changed the media in our dishes and saw something moving in there. A little cyst with some beating cells... so. rad.

Classes, books..

My classes are as thus follows:
BioChem II - Big lecture. Professor records it and puts it in iTunes University, so he threatened us to listen and not take notes. He's got an insane New York accent and makes jokes about how we're all "anaerobic" (aka fat) and got extremely upset that nobody knew the molarity of water (56.5M). The recitation consists of a trying-to-be-funny-but-isn't girl who's about 1 year older than me try to load up TED videos while her Macbook eats itself and then just emails us the link. We're expected to finish about 20 paragraph-answer questions each week to go over. The exams are just handpicked essay questions that he's already given us.
Verdict: Cake-walk.

Endocrine Physiology - Tiny tiny class. About 8 people. Professor is a million years old and tells us stories about experimenting on living dogs' hearts and gives us papers from the '50s to read that have his name on the byline. He's in love with endocrinology... probably not good for us, because he's going to ask impossible questions that someone without a 60-year career in medicine wouldn't know. The grading is like this: you get assigned a topic, you present on it the next week and you hand a paper in on it the week after. Then you get a break week, and it starts over again. When assigning topics, he just grumbled things like "Acromegaly," and "Hepatic portal" at us. I had a nightmare last night that I gave my presentation and he growled, "Just so you know, you got zero points."
Verdict: Worried.

In other news:
I gave my cousin Jillian (12) the Alanna books and The Circle of Magic books. I found out last night that she loved loved loved Alanna and couldn't get past the first 20 pages of the Circle books - exactly how I felt. I'm giving her Kel and Daine the next time I see her, yay! Direct quote: "Tortall kicks some butt!"

Jack - she said she was really upset that Alanna broke up with John. She didn't want to read the end. Lol.

3 months later...

Yeah, that day really did suck. I couldn't sleep for a good week afterwards, which of course fueled my insomnia with stress. But I did well on the midterm, did well in my classes, had a good Christmas - even though I didn't have time to see ANYONE at home, sigh - and even went skiing! Gasp!

I just signed up for a racquetball class Tuesday nights and I'm kind of excited. Yay Dad for getting me the stuff for Xmas! Yay for new things! Never done it before, but apparently it's really fun and a workout. All I ever knew was organized groups sports and now I really miss it. Going to the gym by yourself just isn't the same and my knees are killing me so soccer is out *sniffle*.

My birthday is coming up in a few months and along with it the impending potential renewal of my cell phone contract. I'm still on my family plan, which is pretty awesome because I don't pay anything, but I should probably be an adult and get my own. Apparently you can have plans with non-family members? Adam has a 20% off discount from MS so that would be super helpful. I went to check out the new smartphones, not expecting too much, but they were really pretty and.. better than mine. I'm not sure how much I'd use the data, like web and email etc., but it'll be a lot better than my phone now, whose touch screen is stuttery and doesn't have a qwerty keyboard. Dad'll probably like me getting off the plan, too.

Also, on a sad note: my beloved water boiler, that I've had for 6 years, is finally dead. RIP Braun 200W. I've looked for other ones and they are so expensive!! What the hell! They're at least $80, and going up to like $150, which is totally ridiculous. It boils water, for chrissakes. Although I guess since I really need one, they can jack up the price and make me pay more. Grumble. Maybe I'll switch over to my cappucino maker and just have it boil the water. Hmm...

I'm 35% of the way through "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and it is extremely boring. I don't know why everyone raves about it. It might get good later, but in my opinion, if you have wait for over 100 pages to get to the good part, it's not worth it at all. It's a mystery, too, which is not my cup of tea. Just placating Autumn. It's a C- right now. We'll see if it improves.

The Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson had its moments. He used "..." WAY too much to show pauses in dialogue, and he asked way too many rhetorical questions. Why was she doing this? What could she do to help the world? What if what she was doing wasn't helping the world? What if she was hurting the world? What could she do about that? ARGH! Get on with it! Also, the action scenes were just confusing.
But on the other hand, inventive concepts and pretty good villains and surprise! endings. I'll give it a B.

I've also read the first book in the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher. More modern, more mystery, but the writing was concise and funny and there weren't a billion characters to try and follow. Good! B+

MOST STRESSFUL DAY EVER.

And it's not even 12:00pm.

I'm doing a trip reimbursement form.

1) Found out I'm not reimbursed for food: -$50.00
2) Found out the f-ing hotel charged me for a night that I didn't stay. -$207.00
3) Found out the lady who does billing at the hotel doesn't get in until 3:00pm. F*** YOU, ATLANTA PEOPLE WHO GET INTO WORK AT 3:00PM
4) Had to get employee ID #, went to find it on pay stubs. Found out that the last three paychecks I've received are about $750 short. The tax witholding jumped about 8 million percent for no reason. -$2,100.

Oh my god my head is going to explode. I'm somehow out of about $3,000 and I have to more or less depend on other people to secure it for me. I'm taking a break for some tea before I kill someone.

The approaching coldness.

I know everyone says it, but I really can't believe how fast it's gotten cold and dark. I think it's appropriate this time around, being that summer really only lasted 2 months, tops. However, not all is bad! I've thought of some things that cheer me up about the coming winter.
1) Neat new winter coat, NYC-style, from Macy's. So cute I look like I belong in one of those black-and-white "A Christmas Carol" movies.
2) Winter and Christmas-themed coffee drinks now out. I always thought these were the best ones anyway, with things like peppermint and egg nog. Delicious. Also, in the winter hot coffee tastes and feels good, and you don't have to get an iced one - blech.
3) Studying is easier when the sun isn't beckoning you outside for a picnic.
4) I always sleep better when it's cold out. Open up the windows and snuggle under the blankets.
5) Fun cold-themed activities:
a. Ice-skating! Didn't go last year but definitely going to make an effort this year. I'm horrible at it, btw, so I'll also definitely wear butt-padding.
b. Skiing. Yes, skiing. Finally. After... *cringe* 6 years? Oh, I'm sorry, skis... :'(. I'll rescue you from the basement and take you out. Apparently we're going on a trip to Mt. Snow with a humongous bunch of people (~30, yikes) and Adam doesn't want to look like a total fool so he said we should practice. He wants to snowboard after having had horrific experiences skiing and only semi-embarrassing ones snowboarding. HA! YES! Practice right now means doing lots of wall-sits and side to side jumps since there isn't any snow yet, but come late November we should be able to head up for some day trips. SO EXCITED YOU HAVE NO IDEA. At Mt. Snow maybe I can even try out some of the new racing skis for a day... *drool
6) Hot food tastes better. Pho. Mmm.
7) And last but not least... holiday season! I want to take the day after Thanksgiving off and then Christmas is on a Friday so no worries about that. (Last year I came in after Thanksgiving and boss came in after Christmas... but since there's no trade-off this year I'm going to really try to have Black Friday off. I'm hoping that's our first skiing weekend, eee!)

Don't comment about all the good summer things because I know there are some but I don't want to think about it.

...

.... not happy.

Saving Money

Going to make a serious attempt at this. I'm not losing money or in debt or anything drastic like that; it's just that whenever I check my balance, it's always the same... despite biweekly additions of over 1k. I would say, "I don't get it," but I know why that is. Having a steady influx of money is really a heady thing, and you can go shopping when you feel like it without having to just look, buy lunch instead of bring it when you want, etc.
But now that I've 1) noticed my flatlining bank account, 2) realized that I may have to finish school sans job and 3) have added responsibilities for the apartment like monthly electrical bills (instead of balancing it out at the end of the year like before), I think I should pay some attention to what I spend. That's the thing: I usually just chuck the receipts because (guilty look) I don't like seeing how much money I've just spent. Time to face the music.

Things on the forbidden list:
Unnecessary clothes: one of the greater evils I face...
Books that aren't school-related: probably the second-greatest evil...
Bought-out lunch: not too bad recently, although I have to learn that my eyes are bigger than my stomach
Starbucks for class - go to Oren's instead (very acceptable-tasting medium coffee for $2!): not usually a problem, but Starbucks is so expensive that it's worth putting on here
Random things that are on sale that I don't need: Adam's all-time favorite that I fall prey to sometimes.

Going to pay more attention to:
Groceries: going to not waste food when I already have it. If that means getting up earlier to make eggs for breakfast instead of cereal, so be it.
Electricity: turn off those lights! And plug all the tv stuff into a single power strip that can be turned off when not on.

Excluded (from the forbidden list) things:
Necessary outerwear: this includes winter coat to replace 3-year-old one whose pockets have been sewn back on twice already.
Going out once in a while money: we don't usually go many places, and it's worth it when we do.
Cheap restaurants on weekends: huge bowls of pho for $5 do not count. This could have easily been one thing at the grocery store (DAMN markets in Manhattan are expensive!).

Obviously you can tell I'm not going on lockdown or anything. I hate penny pushing; I think it ruins your day when you could indulge in something small and be happy for a while but don't do it because you hate spending an extra $2.99. However, I do realize that 5 things of $2.99 is already $15 and will keep an eye on it.

Maybe Confessions-of-a-Shopaholic style? Keep all the receipts and write down how much I spent that day? I think that'll be a pretty good deterrent, especially since I don't like looking at the receipts at all.
Today: $0 so far... going for the gold!

Family Junk

Apparently the reason we aren't that close with my dad's older brother's family is because... they don't like each other. :O *gasp* Not my dad and his brother, but my dad and his brother's wife. Now, I have nothing against anyone, really, but I can definitely pick up on some awkwardness etc. I had a big phone convo with my dad about it because she recently friended me on facebook and is commenting on almost all my stuff and they find it a bit weird. Speculating that her daughter is growing up and she needs someone else to supervise? I don't mind, as long as it doesn't get too weird that I notice it. I'll just delete some stuff.
Then there was this mini-fiasco: my mom commented on a status with an inside joke that I realize now can really be taken the wrong way. Well, my aunt took it the wrong way and (I think) recruited my cousin to look at it, who commented also. That's the one thing I found kind of unacceptable; my 15 year old cousin was like, "Aunt Amy, that sounds really horrible and I hope I misunderstood that." I would NEVER write something like that to my aunt/uncle, judging something that "I hope I misunderstood", because I probably did misunderstand it.
My fault: for posting an obscure conversation, not quoted. Mom's fault: for commenting with something that is a big social faux paus when misinterpreted. My aunt's fault: taking it way too seriously before asking what happened. My cousin's fault: For even commenting at all.
I deleted everyone's comments and explained what was needed, and no more. Now my mom and my aunt are blocking each other and going through me and I can just tell the fake icky niceness and *shudder*. If they can't be grownups I'm going to stop mediating soon.
Also, another cousin has testicular cancer. Guh.

I want to go out west for the reunion next summer. Lots of heat, cornfields, beer, potatoes and steak. And cows. And farm dogs. And swimming in "cricks" and riding in the back of pickup trucks. Driven by 14 year olds.
I think it's going to be a big one... which means somewhere in the vicinity of 800-1000 people. I want to bring Adam because he's never been west of New York State or something ridiculous that I refuse to acknowledge. Also, my great uncles want to take him gopher hunting; another worker to get those gopher feet and trade them directly in for beer at the gas station. Sigh.

Kindle?

I've been adamant about not getting a Kindle thus far and have had multiple discussions why I think real books are better. Then my friend got one.
Heavy books. Blah.
Adam's made disparaging remarks about my ginormous book collection. I'll admit, it was a pain to move them.
We compared prices of this new book I wanted to get that just came out. Real version: hardcover, $17.99. Kindle version: 0 space, $9.99.
And that's expensive for a Kindle version... most are just $2.99.
She downloaded 5 books while I was sitting there. Drove me insane.

So, I think it's going to be the one thing I hint about for Christmas. Sigh. Giving in. Oh well. Can't stop the book craving and this is probably the least expensive (in the long run) way to do it.