chickens (for real this time), explanations, and apologies

Well, I'm back from my two day chemistry exam cram. And I'm happy to report that my exam went well (I hope) but you can never really know for sure until you get it back covered in red marks. And yes, I have a professor that still uses a red pen, and even when you get a good grade your test is still marked with small red checks, comments, and general signs that you didn't understand things as well as you originally thought. But now all that is past me (for three weeks at least) and so I am back to my normal blogging habits.

Before I write something uniquely random there are a few, shall we say house keeping items to attend to. The first of which is this, it seems I need to clarify what I meant when I said that street lights come back on when I leave. What I should have said was that street lights come back on once I have past them. So I am still able to observe them in my rear view mirror. One word of caution, if you are not used to watching street lights when driving, don't change your practices just for me. And no, crashing into the street light and making it go out does not count as the light going off in the manner I have described to you. So keep your eagle eyes on the road.

The second is an apology to those of you that were all excited for a chicken blog, I realize that only mentioning chickenpox was a bit of a let down so I have decided to remedy that by telling you my family's favorite chicken story.

Last year when my mom would drive my sister and I to school every day we would drive though a lot of farm country. One day on the way to school my mother commented on the chickens we had just past. Now I hadn't been looking out the window and so hadn't seen them, this continued for a few days, until finally my sister and I remembered to look for mom's chickens, but not wanting to let her off so easily we would pretend we couldn't see them. Now this may seem overly cruel and usual punishment, but we both really thought that my mom would catch on and realize we were only teasing. Not so. At the hight of our chicken period we had my mom almost believing that she was actually seeing imaginary chickens. She became very defensive about this and started to see chickens everywhere. The list of things by the side of the road she has mistaken for a chicke became increasingly long. However, this facade did come to end when my sister and I decided that we had put my mom though enough psychological suffering. (Now, I'm sure that the person that asked for the chicken story is wishing they hadn't)

Well, I hope that this is a long enough blog to make up for my chemistry haze of the last view days. Stargate Atlantis is on tonight, and we finally get to see if Dr. Beckett is a replicator, human clone, or some other dubious recreation of the character we all know and love (Well, I know and love).


Cheers!

Your Literary Junkophile.

Amendment 1: No chemistry fact today. I think I will take a break from chemistry until tomorrow.

Amendment 2: Did you see that chicken?

Amendment 3: No, seriously did you see that chicken?

random things and scheduled mishaps

Well, I had a whirl-wind day. It was one of those that I look back on and have to over whelming drive to say "What?" (as I'm sure you all have noticed is my favorite saying). I went to class and was on my way to another, when I realized that I didn't have chemistry class today, but I did need to be at my voice lesson (like I said, one of those days). Then I thought I was going crazy when my tutoring student showed up a half hour early (at some point I most likely told her the wrong time). So one again, I did a double take and tried to get my mind off of calculus and on to Algrebra 1. (big differences in those two math topics)

You know, I just realized that my desk is a mess. I have lots of random things on it, plus a whole lot a homework that is either already done and so old that I really should throw it way, or is so pressing that I should be doing it right now instead of blogging.

Sorry, but once again this is going to be short blog because I need to get some sleep. I have my first calc. exam in the morning. And I don't want to be tired for that, because we all know that calc. is way to much fun. (And I mean that in all seriousness, calc. really is fun)


Cheers!

Your Literary Junkophile.


Amendment 1: I'm still waiting for responses about the street light thing.

Amendment 2: Memorizing my school schedule would be a good idea.

Amendment 3: mm Hg is a measure of pressure. There are 760 mm Hg in 1 atmosphere.

Amendment 4: Brownies with cinnamon in them are very tasty.

street lamps, schedules, and sleep (I need some)

I'm going to try and make this a quick blog tonight. I really have to get to bed. I just spent 2+ hours working on my lab report. I had to run the equations 3 times. 87% error is not looked at kindly in the scientific community.

Tomorrow I have a very busy day. I'm going to school, having a voice lesson, tutoring, and then seeing a friend that lives in another state (no I'm not going to another state, she is visiting). Some where in there I need to find some time to do some homework as I have my first exam on Wednesday and then another on friday.

Has anyone besides me ever noticed that street lights tend to go out when they drive past. My mom and I both experience this very regularly, and I was wondering if it was just my magnetic personality or just a product of pure chance. There is one particular light that goes out when ever I drive past, and then as soon as I am gone it goes on again. Is this a random act of nature or something more sinister? Philosophically, I'm not sure that I like the idea that I turn off the inner glow of things. But scientifically, I think that being able to turn off street lights with my mere presence is very exciting. Now if I could just learn to control it, that would have made the eclipse much easier to see last week.

Cheers!

Your Literary Junkophile.

Amendment 1: No chem fact tonight. I think I have had enough for tonight.

Amendment 2: Look out for street lights that seem to gravitate towards you.

Amendment 3: Ingnore that last amendment. I really need some sleep.

musical chickens (not what you think)

Well, (you know, I just realized that I start most of my blogs with "well", Oh well) I went to church today (as I usually do on Sundays) and I am still amazed that our music set went as well as it did. Some days practicing before church goes great. We do all the songs in order. We fly through them. Nobody breaks a string. My keyboard works like it is supposed to. But today was not one of those days. Don't get me wrong it was a great service the practice just didn't go that well. For starters, once again my keyboard is causing problems with the sound system, mostly it gives off this fuzy interference kind of sound, but today the amp was so bad that they had to put me directly into the mix without going through the amp. Now, for you non musical types (or non band music types) this means that I have no way to hear myself, which happens to be something that musicians really prefer to be able to do. Then someone broke a string and so we ended up practicing the music in this order: middle set (only first part), first set, last half of middle set, and then the end except for a song that started the end set, we did that last. Now, I'm sure you are surprised as I am that after all of that we still managed to pull of a decent sounding service. But I guess that just shows how much God must like hanging out with us on Sunday mornings, He made even todays sets sound great!

For those of you that had no idea what I was talking about with all the music stuff, sorry about that, but here is a paragraph for you:

Now there are lots of things I worry about: where will I go to school next year, will I have a clean pair of pants in the morning, did I do my math homework right, when my sister said she was going to kill me did she really mean it. Those types of things. But now I have a new worry: Will I get the chickenpox. I had the vaccine when I was about six, but now they (they meaning the CDC) recomend that everyone get two doses for actual immunity. I have only had one dose and I was exposed last Sunday. Now the person that has it is my friend and I feel really bad for her, because who wants the chickenpox in your senoir year (or at any point in your life), and she couldn't have known that she had it, but still I really really hope I don't come down with the chickenpox in the next 14 days. And yes, I looked up the incubation period and it happens to be up to 21 days. So I have 2 weeks of worry left to get through. I also hope that my pastor didn't give me the flu.

Ok, so sorry about this post. It seems that you will really only get it if you understand musical band talk or medical stuff, and what I am about to tell you won't make it any better. Time for another Chemistry fact.

A state function is something that only looks at the beginning and the end result. ie. the total energy change.
A path function is something that looks at the way you got to the end.


Cheers!

Your Literary Junkophile.

Amendment 1: I sent in my last college application today. I'm finally done! Until med school.

Amendment 2: I really want an amp. that works correctly (or a keyboard that does, I not sure which one is causing the problem)

Amendment 3: Tea is best with milk and sugar.

Amendment 4: Never drive with a flat tire (just thought I should remind you).

college stuff, and that's about it

Nothing very interesting happened today. I went to school, I came home did some homework, watched Atlantis (well, I guess this was interesting, but not by your standards I'm sure), worked on some more homework, and worked on three essays for my last college application.

I find college applications very frustrating. You have to write down all this information (that takes forever) and then you have to write 1-3 essays that are some how supposed to show who you really are, and what you life goals are. Most of the time I write for fun (as I'm sure you have all guessed by now) so writing some biographical 500 word essay is not my cup of tea (tea really sounds good right now). So you basically go through this whole long process that you hope makes you look like a good student/person, only to realize after you have summited it that you left out some really important part of your life that would really make you stick out to the admission people at (Insert college name). College interviews are also fun. They always try really hard to make it seem like you are just having a conversation, but the not so sutle glances down at their list of stock questions is usually so distracting that you can't properly focus. Though I have gotten very good at reading upside down (This is something you may want to practice before you go to your interview).

I got to talk to a prospective student at school yesterday. I felt really sorry for her as she was left in a class that isn't very prospective student friendly. She kept getting up to go to the restroom, and when she did the professor would come over and ask me and this other girl if we had already scared her off. I really hope I didn't. I tried to give her some good information with out sugar-coating the school to much. I know from personal experience how uncomfortable being pawned off on different people can be, when all you are trying to do is figure out if this is the right school for you.

Well, now that you all have my excellent college advice you should be all set to go and check things out for your self, and if you didn't want to know any of this, sorry, but I did tell you in the title that this blog was only about college stuff. (That was one long sentence)


Cheers!

Your Literary Junkophile.


Amendment 1: Physicists and chemists tend to see things in opposite ways. One will add a + sign to an equation while the other has a - sign. (Yes that was about all I learned in chemistry today)

Amendment 2: Silly physicists. Why use a minus sign if you don't need one.
Amendment 3: If it is green and wiggly, it is biology. If it stinks, it is chemistry. If it doesn't work, if is physics.

Amendment 4: Who really likes green and wiggly things, and like I said before, silly physicists.

Amendment 5: I thing I will go get a cup of tea.

observations and obstinacy

Well, today I got nearly no homework done. I went shopping with my mom and sister, and then tutored for a while, and so all I really got done was math. However, I did have some, shall we say interesting, observations while shopping. So here goes.

If you have to change the way you walk to keep your pants us, it is time to buy a belt. Now, I'm sure that you all know that, yet there seems to be a large population of people (mainly teenage boys) that have not received that particular message.

If it looks like mental hospital, and says "Mental Hospital" on the front, it is likely a mental hospital. Not that I have experienced this first hand, but driving past one my mom commented that they really did look like they portrade them in the movies from the outside.

Never take my sister to a mall and assume that it will be a quick trip. Even just looking at shoes can take a very long time, and when she actually need to buy something, that takes even longer.

Olive Garden Lunches can be split between two people for two meals. Seriously, my mom and I shared one thing that came with a salad and we each only ate about half of our already halved portions. We then finished it up for dinner.

Life is simpler if you don't listen to a CD in the car. My sister and I always end up disagreeing about what CD to listen to. So some times we end up listening to nothing, but today we just argued about.


Cheers!

Your Literary Junkophile.


Amendment 1: Basic math is very important for chemistry, messing up can drastically change your result. Ask me how I know.

Amendment 2: Life is better when it is Friday.

Amendmnet 3: Mouse Ears help as well.

miles of madness

I am very sorry that I didn't blog yesterday. I can just picture some poor person all excited to read my daily blog only to get online and find out that I had mysteriously disapeared for the day (but maybe I am going a little overboard with the importance you actually place on my blog). My only excuse: I was spending time with three of the greatest people in the world, that just happen to be three of my favorite people in the world. (If you weren't there, I'm sorry, and maybe I don't like you as much as you think I do. (I'm just kidding, I love you all, but my house is only so big)). But rest assured I am back, and with a blog once again filled with nothing of real importance or practical value.

I was reading my psych textbook a few minutes ago, and I ran across a very interesting type of brain damage. It happens when your corbus callosum is severed. Just from that last sentence it sound disturbing, but wait, it gets better. Basically your corbus callosum is what ties your right and left brains together, so when it it severed it causes some very unusual side effects. For example: if you touch something with one hand, one of two things will happen, either you will not be able to verbally describe it or even remember it, or you can feel it. When asked to point out the object that you just touched someone would say "I have no idea", but correctly point to it with their left hand. This really gives new meaning to not letting you left hand know what the right is doing.

Today I discovered a revolutionary piece of technology that was the highlight of my swim. It is this thing you stick your swim suit in and then it get all of the water out in about 5-10 seconds, this is so nice because that means I'm not carrying around a piece to soaking wet material around campus. It looks like a miniature washer, but perfectly sized for a bathing suit. (Can you tell that I am enamored?). But anyway this was a really cool discovery for me, because now my swim suit will not be cool, but dry. (Ok, so that last paragraph really didn't relate to anything , but that is what I promised you was it not?)

Cheers!

Your Literary Junkophile.


Amendment 1: Does anyone know what the word "parsimonious" means?

Amendemnt 2: Yes, I'm going to tell you because I know what it means. Why else would I have asked you?

Amendment 3: Frugal.

Amendment 4: Always balance an oxidation/reduction reaction first in an aqueous acid solution, then (if neccessary) change to a basic solution, by adding OH- ions to the H+ ions (be sure to add them on both sides of the equation), so that the hydrogen because water.

Amendment 4: I'm having lots of fun in math with partial fraction decompositions. (But don't we all)