More on Balance

Last time I wrote a post, I wrote about the importance of balance in my life, of finding time to do the things that matter.

Today, I'm taking some time for balance. There are statistics to be done and papers to write and SO many mothers to call (this is the nature of doing research in child development- there are always more mothers to call), but right now I'm going to sit here in a beautiful library and read a novel that I am finding delightful. Tonight I am going to the ballet, and tomorrow morning I will pick a friend up at the airport before going into the lab for a couple of hours. Sunday will be spent working on two different projects and, I hope, fitting in some homework. Right now, though, I will sit, and I will read.

Holy Shit. It's Finals.

It's finals. I'm not being very productive.
Actually, I'm not being productive at all. I have a fourteen page paper due tomorrow at 8 am. I have just under two pages, and the rest outlined.
I am not nervous about this. At all.
I did, however, just realize that this push to get work done? It's not just a push towards the end of the term. It's a push towards the end of college.
That's some scary shit, right there.

I would write my essay, but I'm too busy trying not to walk over and munch on some baby legs

There is a baby in the cafe where I am working.
I do not know this baby or her mother, but she is maybe the cutest baby EVER.
It is tres difficult to write a paper on mate choice in songbirds when you are exercising restraint in not chomping on the feet of a strange baby.

Oh, Finals, you have come again.

Today, instead of doing laundry, I went to the Gap and bought six pairs of socks. Given the fact that they seemed to be running out, I suspect that I am not the only person who's been doing this.

An Interesting Alternative

Cheez-its and frappucinos make an interesting alternative to stale stoned wheat thins and red bull.
Finals are almost over.

Finally, the Much-Awaited Pictures! (Or, I Do Not Like Studying Cognition)

I finally figured out how to make my computer recognize my digital camera. It is quite complicated. First, you must plug it in. Then, it opens iPhoto, and then it uploads the pictures. Very very difficult.
Anyway, this means that you guys get pictures! Of my bed! And my new computer!
First, the huge bed:


Isn't it big and beautiful?
And this is what I get to look at every morning when I wake up:


And finally, this is the computer that I am currently typing this out on:


It allows me to take pictures of myself like this:


I'm so attractive.

Oh, Finals

There's nothing like stale Stoned Wheat Thins and Red Bull for breakfast.

I want a mac

I want a mac. I don't have a good reason, really. My computer is on its third hard drive, and it seems like it's about to need its third motherboard, and after a tea spill a while ago, the s key no longer works (I have to control + V for every s I make), and the d key always types at least one a as well. (Here. I will illustrate: dadadadadadadadadadadadadaaaadadadadada. Achieved by typing only the d key.) And macs are pretty and their keys work and they charge properly without getting confused and telling you to connect the proper charger, even when the proper charger is connected.
They don't have accidental damage coverage, but they are so pretty, I feel that I would not hurt a mac as much as I hurt my Dell. (Not that I don't love you, compy. I love you very much. You just make me feel frustrated sometimes and you're kind of heavy and not very pretty. Wow. I could be explaining myself. Maybe it's like pets- you know, how pets and owners often look alike?)
But I have no money and compy is still under warranty so I guess I'll just get compy fixed and save money to buy a new computer this summer.
And now I will read about schizophrenia in children.

Sometimes We Have Sock Adventures (Or, I Don't Want to Make My Powerpoint Presentation)

Sometimes your friend Emily sends you socks in the mail, only they are very tiny:


So you and other members of the sororitee who also live on the third floor need to have a sock-growing adventure:


(You also need to wear special headgear for your sock-growing adventure, if you're me.)
And then you grow the socks:

And they make bubbles:


And then they need room to grow, so you put them in the sink:


And then you love your blog SO MUCH, you put the socks on your feet to illustrate their sockiness, even though they are very wet:


And then your feet are wet, too:


And then you realize that you just put two pictures of your ginormous monster feet on your blog and you go write your presentation in shame.

Hatred

Sometimes I hate school.
Like when I have four papers due in one week.
Back when I was an engineer, I think I felt this way a lot more often.
So maybe I should be glad I'm not an engineer anymore.
But right now I just want to take a rest and have a shoulder massage.
But at least I'm not an engineer!

Icky

I have a cold.
It's not fun.
Also, I have a paper due in two hours and ten minutes.
I should get on that.

Bleh

You know that feeling where you don't know what you want to be doing, but you know it's not what you are doing?
That's how I feel about studying for the midterm I have in 58 minutes. So I'm just not doing it. I think this could be disastrous. Oh, well.
I have a real post that I shall write tonight if I get around to it.

And I'm Back

After a lovely weekend visiting boys at Swarthmore with Marissa, I return to Hanover to write a paper and do other sorts of homework I don't really feel like doing. However, I haven't told you about my trip, and I'm sure you're all dying to know.
It was superfun. Highlights included:
1. Seeing Mikio's performances with Marissa and Manoli, and sitting next to Marissa joking about things you can only joke about with your sorority sisters and select other close girlfriends. The concert on Sunday night was hi-larious. I'm not really sure why. I just couldn't stop laughing. Sitting between Marissa and Manoli certainly didn't help.
2. Learning how to tell the difference between bad feta and worse feta from a real Greek person. Unfortunately, Swarthmore Pennsylvania is lacking in any feta that is better than bad feta.
3. Lovely weather, and sitting outside on the (non-muddy!) grass in the sunshine, pretending to do reading but really just talking.
4. Donuts on weekday mornings from the construction people. Dartmouth students need to learn to negotiate better; I spent an entire year living in a building that shook next to a construction site where they started work at 7 a.m., and I never got a single donut. Or anything at all. Except woken up by a shaking building and loud construction. I don't even like donuts that much. I just like the idea.
And that was my weekend. It was fun. Now I shall go write my paper.
p.s. Happy Birthday to my Favorite Child in the Whole World! I can't believe she's five today!

Yaaaaaaay!

I have to write a paper!
It's about a play!
I haven't started it yet!
It's due in eight hours and twenty minutes!
I want to do a good job!
That's unlikely!
Luckily, I'm in the 1902 Room, which never closes, and I have coffee and two granny smith apples and one kozy shack tapioca pudding and a fake nalgene full of water and one little bag of ruffles potato chips that I just finished.
I think I'll be okay.

Special

I totally inhaled a snowflake through my nose while walking to the new math building just now.

Also, I have a brilliant post brewing about how I got to tell my favorite story in class yesterday. But right now I have a paper and a midterm tomorrow, so I must get back to work.

Holy Shit I'm Ahead on My Homework

Wow. This has not happened since sophomore year of high school, I think. I am so proud of myself. Maybe this term I will actually be on top of my shit. Here are all the on top of my shit things I've done so far this term:

• Cooked Tonight for dinner I made emergency pasta, but then I also sauteed peppers and onions that Mandell bought at the salad bar, and mixed those in. It was very delicious. Tomorrow I think I'm going grocery shopping so I can buy ingredients to make Mujudarah like I read about in Orangette, one of my most favorite food blogs.

• My Homework So, I used to be an engineer, right? When you're an engineer, you have problem sets due and projects to do, so you don't really have time for wimpy homework like reading. It just doesn't get done, 'cause it doesn't really count as homework. This mindset can be a problem when you start taking classes that are all reading-based. But lately I've been going to Rosey's, the most lovely little cafe in Hanover New Hampshire, and getting a pot of Earl Grey tea and reading about Developmental Psychopathology.

• Exercising It is finally warming up here in Hanover New Hampshire, and so I am starting to run again. Yesterday my friend Berko and I went for a glorious run around Occum Pond. Twice. (We did two laps, not two separate runs. That would have been weird).

• Going to Church I went with Emma today 'cause it was Palm Sunday, and it was fun and enjoyable and I made a lovely little art project out of the palm that they gave me:

I had to do this craft project (which my mom taught me how to do) because I am not good at sitting still, even though I am 21 and should know how to sit still in church by now. I go to a lovely Congregationalist Church, of the sort that you will find in most New England college towns, and I like going because it is an hour on Sunday mornings where I am forced to be still and not think about my homework. Even if I can't sit still very well, I like going.
And that is it. I am sorry this post is so boring. I will write about Microfiche and Toothbrushing Parties soon. Or maybe something EVEN MORE interesting than Microfiche and Toothbrushing Parties. If such a thing exists.

Whoops

The bed looked too lonely.
I can totally revise this paper in three hours.

Maybe Tonight Will Be the Night

So, I know I keep telling you that I'm going to pull all-nighters. What my readers who do not go to Dartmouth College don't know is that usually, after I make such bold claims in my blog, I notice how lonely my bed looks, and I get in. But only to keep it company. It's not my fault that I happen to fall asleep while I'm there.
Tomorrow, however, I am going home on the five o'clock bus. I have plans to hang out with Manoli at eight-thirty-ish. This necessitates me being in Cambridge by then. So I will take the five o'clock bus. I just need to finish a paper and a journal (which includes a paper) by four o'clock tomorrow afternoon. So tonight, TONIGHT, I promise you, I will not sleep. I have Girl Scout cookies and gum and Jasmine tea and water. Those things will keep me up. They'd better.

Let the Caffeination Begin

So, the all-nighter didn't happen last night. Which means that it will happen tonight, for sure! Because life is JUST THAT GREAT.
And I need to do these damn papers. And I don't want to. But it's not even that I don't want to. It's that I don't really know how. Because I haven't written a paper in more than a year.
Oh, well. How will I learn if I don't just do it?
I don't think this post makes any sense. Which bodes quite well for my paper, I know.

My Paper

I have an excellent post in the works for later tonight. But first, I must write a rough draft of a paper.
So far: two paragraphs. If you assume two paragraphs/page, which I always do (a fact that often gets me into trouble), I only have eight left to go. Since I have eight paragraphs worth of material, I can totally do this. In three hours? Maybe. I just need to get some words on the page, and then I can revise revise revise.
Why isn't paper-writing as easy and fun as blogging?
EDIT: 9:52 p.m. THREE WHOLE PARAGRAPHS! Slow but steady. Now I must stand up.