01.30.06
Posted in university, random at 3:27 pm by juliebug
And I’m not sure why, exactly.
I’m sitting in my Contemporary Cultural Theory class (God bless wireless), and I just… feel weird.
Learning about the difference between social theory and sociological theory (oh, and there is one), I feel unfulfilled and wistful. Not that I don’t like sociology, because I do, but I’m increasingly convinced that sociology is a means to an end for me, although the end is as of yet unknown.
I feel like writing, these days. There’s something bouncing around in the back of my mind, but I have no idea what it is, and I don’t quite know how to coax it out to play. I feel like being artistic, somehow, but I don’t know if that means I want to redo a website or make a new desktop image or just play in Photoshop or Illustrator. I feel like disconnecting myself from the online world, but I don’t think I really want to connect myself to the “real” world any more than I already am connected. I feel like I want to talk and write and read in Italian all the time, but it’s not possible for me to immerse myself in the language as much as I’d like.
This is my problem. I’m always really interested in about a thousand things at once, and I don’t have enough time to really get into them all, and not enough determination to get into one thing, and too much interest to limit myself to that one thing anyways.
I guess I’m just… restless, more than wistful, but there’s wistfulness in there, too. I remember being able to make time to do things that were important to me. I don’t ever remember being this burnt out. This is the first time in my life I’ve managed to push past where I’d normally give up, at least for this long a time.
May. In May, after finals, I’ll have a bit of time to relax, to change gears, to sleep in. Go back to my part-time job, too, for a bit, but definitely after a couple weeks of rest.
And then, Italy, for two weeks. With my parents, alas. But Italy. For two weeks! Pasta and gelato and ITALIAN. The ability to go out into the streets of Milano, Venezia, Firenze and Roma and know how to do more than order mineral water (without carbonation) or ice cream or pasta, and understand what I read and be able to appreciate things so much more than I did at age five or thirteen.
Then back home, back to work, and a single three credit class during the summer, perhaps.
I chalk up this general malaise to working last summer while doing the hardest 6 credit class ever. Sure, I got an A, but I pretty much killed myself while doing it. Still, it’ll help me with a 400 level version of that class this year, and both of those will help with my thesis next year.
But I want more than to do classes and get these crazy letter grades that I’ve come to care so much about, which, in itself, is terrifying. I still want to create and absorb art. I don’t want to read these days, because I have so much readings for school. This is foreign to me. I love to read. What is university doing to me?
Suggestions on how to recharge my batteries before May are welcome, because I don’t know how I’m going to make it through to May without some kind of recharging.
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11.10.05
Posted in university, hockey at 3:32 am by juliebug
I keep forgetting about my blog. That’s not a great sign, I don’t think. Ah, well. Practice makes perfect, eh?
So, basically, life is crazy. University is driving me insane, the Habs are continually shocking me (in a GOOD way. I’ve been to two games in the last week, and we’re on a five-game winning streak!) and, yes, I am doing National Novel Writing Month. Two (or three?) years ago, when I did it, I got a sticker. It reads:
I’ll sleep in December.
That’s pretty much when I’m going to get to sleep next.
Tonight, I’m working on a Research Design and Analysis assignment, which should be just fine, considering I did most of what RD&A requires of me back in Research Methods this past summer, and we’re allowed to reuse our data/work. Of course, it’s 2:21am, it’s due at 6pm, and I haven’t started yet. Nor have I written a single word for NaNo after I went to bed at SEVEN THIRTY on Wednesday morning, which will put me about 1400 words behind, because I was about 200 words ahead when I went to bed.
That’s about all that’s new in my life. I know I owe emails — Jeff, I’m not annoyed with you at all, just confused by this new blog interface — and I’ll get to them, eventually. The best place to reach me, at the moment, is (and I’m putting it this way because I don’t want to be spammed to death):
juliebug [at] golf mike alpha india lima [dot] charlie oscar mike
I don’t even open Eudora anymore, I just check various webmail interfaces, but that’s rare. The above-mentioned address is the only one I check regularly.
Oh, and one other thing, before I get back to work: THE WEATHER SUCKS. It was like, 2 degrees out today, windy as hell, pouring rain. It was raining horizontally, I swear, because I HAD an umbrella and I got drenched anyways. Not to mention the fact that I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt, a fleece sweater AND a coat and the wind still cut through all that like a hot knife through butter.
Either bring on the snow, so that I don’t get soaked while waiting six minutes for a bus, and so that I can ski (!!! I can’t wait), or just cool it on the precipitation for a while, ‘kay? Thanks.
Off to work on RD&A, and I promise to post again soon.
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10.14.05
Posted in university, random at 4:12 am by juliebug
Well, it’s going to take a little bit of time for me to get used to this whole blog thing again. I’d pretty much forgotten entirely that I even still have a blog again. The only reason I remembered is that it’s raining outside right now, at nearly 4am, and I thought, “Hey, it’d be nice to have a blog again, just so I can write about the rain.”
And then I said to myself, “Self, you DO have a blog again!”
So here I am. And I am quite amused by myself.
As to the rain, it’s gentle, it’s comforting and it makes me so very happy to be sitting indoors, where it’s nice and warm, with just one lamp on in my living room, with a blanket on my lap, while all that’s going on out there.
School is going well. Halfway through the semester, practically, and I’ve had to turn in very little work, which is always a bonus, particularly as I have very little work to hand in for this whole semester. I get an essay assigned tomorrow, and I have a short assignment in SPSS for next Thursday, plus I have to write a parody or satire of my favourite or least-favourite song for Monday… and, yeah, I just had an Italian test and handed in an Italian composition.
Hm. When you put it all together like that, along with the prose poem and univocal lipogram I had to do, maybe it is a fair bit of work to hand in. I’m woefully behind on my readings, of course, but I feel like I don’t get a lot out of the lectures when I’ve done the readings, and that I don’t get a lot out of the readings (particularly for Social Theory) when I haven’t heard the lectures yet.
Upcoming plans include:
- a pumpkin carving party at J’s on Saturday night, apparently
- seeing my best friend at some point in the next few days, when she’ll be up from the US
- doing homework
- helping others with SPSS homework
- playing computer games when I should be doing homework
- preparing for NaNoWriMo
- cheering for the Habs, with their 4-1 record thus far
Did I mention that I got my driver’s license back in March? It was a snowy, snowy day and they actually CLOSED the license bureau for road tests about 20 minutes after I finished. I passed on the first try. Just FYI, it is not easy to parallel park in 15cm of snow.
On that note, I’m going to watch Smallville (the shame, the shame!) and then go to bed.
I really do need to post more often.
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10.07.05
Posted in university, television at 5:41 am by juliebug
So it’s 5:25am as I begin to write this. What am I doing? Burning some CDs to get some free space on my HD. What should I be doing? Reading for Contemporary Sociological Theory, which is my only class tomorrow, and begins really early — at 2:45pm. ;)
Well, that’s my earliest class of the semester! My other classes are at 4:15pm and at 6pm!
Basically, I should have showered and gone to bed by now, and I really should have done my reading on Talcott Parsons. But I haven’t done any of those. I spent tonight watching TV. Alias and Smallville, actually, although it took me, oh, THREE HOURS to get through my tape of Alias. Distractions in the form of hockey (hockey! You’re back! I LOVE YOU!), phone calls, random airings of Sex and the City and an explanation as to what webhosting is and why one must usually pay for such things all interfered with watching Alias.
Still, it was a lovely evening. Hell, my whole day was great except for a nagging headache. I woke up past 1, I skimmed my Research Design & Analysis readings, I talked on the phone, found out P got a new job (and I am very psyched for her!), caught my bus, went to class… okay, so I got lost on the 11th floor looking for a specific lab. I wound up in the Economics department instead of the Sociology department, but I got there eventually! And then, as we’re all sitting there, trying to use SPSS (a big ol’ stats program), like, 80% of the licenses on the computers had expired. I could NOT suppress a laugh, and pulled out my laptop and opened up SPSS. I’ve been using SPSS all summer for my Research Methods class. All those hours of inputting data and playing with it actually paid off.
Anyways, the teacher told us to all group together with the 20% of the computers that had a valid SPSS license, but since I had a working copy, I called my friend J over and this guy B, this guy M-A and some other dude (whose name I have totally spaced on) all came over. And we all KNOW SPSS, so the teacher was explaining how to run descriptive stats and stuff and we’re like “yeah, yeah, we know”. Meanwhile, this guy D and and girl M realized I had a working copy and inquired as to how to get their home copies to continue working. I sense I may become popular in this class. ;)
Got home, saw the end of the third period between the Habs and the Rangers and am annoyed by the Rangers’ 3rd goal, but hey, Ryder scored in OT to give the Habs a 2-0 record thus far this season and it was his third goal in two games and his second game-winner. I am rather thrilled. :)
Then J and I eventually got through Alias, and she was even able to catch her bus home ’cause the nice bus driver realized she wanted on the bus and stopped just AFTER the stop to let her run across to get on.
And what the hell have I done in the nearly six hours since she went home? Honestly, I don’t know. Watched Smallville. That didn’t take six hours. <scratches head> Where DOES the time go? Honestly!
On that note, I should go back to CD burning for a bit and maybe I’ll get some reading done while things burn.
(Aren’t you thrilled I’m blogging again? I know you are. ;))
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