You Can't Handle An Update!

If anyone is still waiting for me to post, I thank you. You're dedication is incredible. Even I wasn't sure if I'd ever come back. It'd seemed as though for a while there I'd died amongst a pile of homework and lab reports but here I am, no worse for wear if we all just disregard a lot of paper cuts. I think Thanksgiving got thrown into this time period, too. But for the most part there isn't much noteworthy there.

Here's a taste of my life as of late: I just got back from work after a full day of classes. Woohoo! Lay down, do some homework, eat some food, maybe, if I get crazy. Checking e-mail. Bad idea. Guess who wants me to run back into work via snow storm?

I took the news like a champ.

I stomped into boots, refused to change back out of my pajamas, stuck in headphones and started to sing anything that came on, regardless if I knew the words or not, and threw snowballs at passing cars.

I am an adult.

---
Seriously, I have nothing else to write about.

Here's a picture of a kitten to make up for it.

Once I had Ideas...

But they're all gone now.

I can't even recount my last week or two. It's been a blur of exams, studying, homework, and job. Mostly job. Can anyone else say that they are sick of coming home smelling like latex and ethanol? I really hope not, because it's kind of horrendous. Especially when you walk in smelling like skunk already.

My schedule has completely sapped all of my post ideas I had built up. Here's a list instead:


::I had my annual meeting with my scholarship sponsor (What? You guys all thought I was rich enough to attend University of Michigan on my OWN? Ha!) He's a cool guy, you may have heard of him. He owns the New York Mets. Name dropping aside, there's always a bit of perspective given when I look around the luncheon and see all the other students just becoming doctors and physists and whatnot. Seemlessly. Oh wait, you're just an Environmental Psychology major? Oh, AND German? ...How...beneficial to society.


::I haven't failed too many exams yet. Woohoo!


:: There's HOW many weeks left until Christmas?!?


:: I am so very very tired.

Apologies for my really cruddy writing. I promise to whip up something better when I have the energy. But right now I have four subjects of homework all screaming my name.

Eau de Skunk

You know the stinky kid? The one you sat next to in school but were too nice to tell them to shower so you gave them subtle gifts like scented shower gel and gum. If you don't know which kid I'm referring to, then you were that kid in school.
Every school has a stinky kid.
Fact.

 I am that stinky kid now.

And it stinks.

Waking up early this morning to a dog digging around in our trash bins outside my window did not rate high on my list of things to do, yet there it is. The owners came running not far behind telling "Kelly" to stop and get away from there. Next second skunkness was all I could taste. Not even smell, but taste, it was so strong. I just assume that mischevious Kelly got into it with one outside my window. Silly Kelly. I put my blankets over my head and tried to get back to sleep.

This morning the entire apartment reaks. My sheets, towels, clothes, and jacket are all permeated with skunk smell. Walking into the hallway it just gets worse but funnily enough outside you don't smell anything. I think the skunk went down under the foundation of the house.
And died.
Below my bedroom.
Showering doesn't make a difference because, well for one thing, when has a shower ever helped skunk smell and for another what does it matter if the towel I dry with smells like butt and the clothes do too? Smellyness just wafts around and doesn't go anywhere. Forget opening the door because it smells worse out there. I am sitting in a nearly tangible cloud of stink. It's permanently embedded at the back of my throat.

So I have to go to class and sit in the midst of normal smelling people and wait for the scent to follow behind me before they start to unconsciously look around and twitch their noses, ferretting out the source of the uck that just came in. I might as well just have the cartoon squiggles above my head.

I've never felt like I could relate to Pigpen so much. Or Pepe la pui. He seems like a someone that would understand.

Metaphorically speaking this fits in with my mood perfectly, the irony of the situation is how much I wish it didn't. Only a couple more days and school will stop being so crappy. Two major exams will be out of the way and hopefully I will have a term paper finished. I just hope the smell decides to make its way with the mood.

On a completely unrelated note, anyone know how to get skunk smell from out of the air, just short of Febreezing it with tomato paste?

An Apple a Day

There's been a lot of hub around health care in the states lately. You know, tea party activists and Obama care  and all that.

If I may throw in my opinion I would really just appreciate it if doctors would start giving you a lolly pop at the end of your visit. Honestly, where did that practice go?

That's all I want. Just a lolly. Is that so hard?

Do you think if I started throwing tantrums and crying over pap smears (because, let's be honest, those are way more intimidating that a booster shot) they'd pacify me with a caramel apple pop? Pat me on the head and tell me what a good girl I'd been and let me decide between a cherry or grape bubble pop?

Just imagine driving home from your next appointment getting a little sugar high and I think that it's unanimous; it'd be better.

die Verwandlung : From American to Something in between

If you've read Kafka raise your hand.
Bueller?
...Bueller?
No one? Okay, so everyone go pick up a copy of the Metamorphosis. Got yours? Okay, put it down. If you hadn't trudged through it in college, you're not going to want to now. The point I'm trying to get at is a famous story of his is about a guy turning into a bug--satire will do that--and in a way my blog has been one really long rambly bit of satire of my very own transformation.

Here are a few examples of how that's shaping up.
::    In a geology lecture, my professor asked me how to tell the difference between a stalactite/mite. I had learned this through the use of a bit of raunchy Germany and tried to explain so. Which led into the two of us having a full-fledged conversation in German, over a microphone, mind you, in a hall of two hundred odd students. (Fun fact: He did a bit of work in Germany and began speaking around age twelve) He now searches me out of the crowd in lecture or in the hall to have a quick chat.

::     At a (hah, let's face it "the only") Halloween party I attended, a guy bumped into a friend of mine wearing a monkey hat and suit and tie. If any of you are a fan of award-winning-German rap music your brain would immediately make the jump to Peter Fox. 

Or to some of your childhood nightmares. Your pick.

 I jokingly asked if he liked the singer and he flipped. Eyes wide he asked if I was German too. Because he was from Berlin (Fox's stomping grounds) and if I wasn't German, how is it possible that I knew of Peter Fox? This turned into a half-meshed converstation of German and English yelling over music-- Brittney Spears, if memory serves--where I had to prove my ability to understand the subtleties of German rap by declaring my favorite bands. Hey, German Engineering student, if you're reading this: Hi.

::      After German class I was waiting to discuss some things with my teacher. I slipped my backpack on and a button of mine popped off. A student of the in-coming Calculus class scooped it up and said, "Hey, you dropped your button."
I reached for it and thanked him. If I'd lost it, I would have been really sad. I'd gotten it years ago. He sort of looked at me weirdly, not something I'm wholly unaccustomed to, and I walked out of class. Not until I had gotten back home did I realize I blurted all of that in German. Just conversing in German with people who don't speak German, you know, no biggie.
Flip side to looking like an idiot is that I really didn't even think about it. Right? A whole new language was just spewing out unchecked. What's it to me if one person thinks I am an alien who babbles in some random tongue?

Being the Change

 I don't know why I've started following this the way I have. 

Maybe it all started with our new television stand at home. For some reason, the television was turned on as we put together this big-honkin' dark mahogany stand--which is really nicely disguised plywood-- to put it on, and on the television was some dramatic Dateline piece about cyber bullying was toning away and blah blah blah, Mom turn it off.

It was a wrench piece, making it impossible for parents to watch but impossible not to watch. The reporting was set up like so:
"After the break, the shocking secrets you DON'T want to know about your child's Facebook account."

Try not to think about purple elephants and all you'll think about are purple elephants.

(**Right now I'm just going to warn you that I will step on my little Soapbox and you are free to kick me off at anytime... **)

Now you can agree or disagree with me all you like, really opinions are opinions and every one has one. And  I will admit, I am not a Mother of a child who has been bullied and as a child I generally stayed out of it. But that doesn't mean I am blind to it. And it doesn't mean that other people should be either. And what is going on in our homestate politics is disgusting. There is no better word for it than that.
Dis-gust-ing.

Please read this.

A bill has passed in which bullying is allowed IF they can provide a reason, religious or moral.
Puh-lease. I thought this was satire, at first glace. Nope, not in the slightest. Is this what we want children to think? It's okay to hurt someone so long as they are different than you--that stereotyping is more important than individual personality? Will the tide turn if the bullying passes from a Muslim to a Christian child, calling him an Infidel to his religion so it's not only legal, but morally acceptable for him to give a black eye?

If anyone wants to join me in writing letters to our wonderful Senators, than I would be more than welcome for the support because I, for one, am going to flex my democratic muscle against this swill.

::Sorry the post is so unlike me. I will reiterate, this is not normally my style, but it has me worked up for some reason. More Becca-like posts coming soon!::

Hooray For Paydays!

But not the candy bars. Those are gross.

Since I went to Germany last winter I haven't held a formal job. It was difficult. Most students I went with were having withdrawls from their cell phones, treating it like having lost an appendage and would grope in their pockets every so often to check. The habitual action of checking for messages that weren't there distressed a lot of people, like phantom limb syndrom. If a cell phone could be considered an extension to some. ...You know who you are.

Well, I'm terrible with cell phones. There's a reason why I don't give out my number, because ninety-nine times out of ten I have no idea where the sucker is and you'd be better off sending smoke signals to get my attention.

What I am not terrible with is having a job. Unlike searching for text messages or Twitter updates, I would prowl around my host family's home scowering out jobs. Does the dishwasher need to be loaded? Unloaded? Has laundry been folded? Where do you keep the vaccum? Do we need to chop wood or something? The double-edged sword was that my host mom was as neurotic about working as I am. The place was spotless! The horror.

Let's be honest, having a job has been part of my daily life for pretty much as far back as child labor laws can be bent. When my sister changed jobs from milking cattle to working assisting the local taxidermist, I picked up the cattle job. I was somewheres around thirteen. After she quit the taxidermist, guess who started there and worked until college and then immediately grabbed two more part-times? And so ended my childhood.

That was a joke, I'm kidding. Calm down.

Working on a farm means you never had a childhood.
*Cue in my mom screaming out both my first AND middle name...*

My brand spankin' new lab job is cool in many a-way. But the best part happened yesterday when I checked my e-mail. Happiness ensues when U of M decids to e-mail me and tell me that my paycheck has been posted.

Three cheers for pay day!

I looked favorably on my .pdf e-check and glamored in a fantasy of what I could buy now with my new-found, hard-earned cash money! In my mind I treated myself to ice cream and cupcakes from the local shops around Ann Arbor I love. Then I kicked that dream out the proverbial back-door of my mind and stashed it in my savings account for next month's rent.

Frugal is as frugal does.

DON'T put that on your blog!

A phenomena about the blogging community is to dedicate one day a week (phff. Overacheivers.) to writing for five minutes without editing. Remember back in high school where there was actually a process to setting up an essay? This could be considered a freewrite. And since I am so lacking in post ideas right now that do not pertain to my overabundance of work, I decided to give it a try. They're calling it a Stream of Consciousness. Start the clock!

Can't I just quit school? I'm sure there are some very happy hermits out there, living in their caves and smiling to themselves knowing they will never have a need to learn which charge a poly-d-lysine multi-wellplate holds. (Thumbs up if you knew it was a positive net charge that creates a hydrophillic surface for the cells to bind to!)

That's odd. It's exactly noon. How very poetic of my first timed blabbering to begin right on the dot of the day. Just got back from dance class, don't judge me, and have decided that I made some major decisions about my life. I haven't quite made the decisions yet, but I decided TO decide them. So much for that making sense. There's a little voice in my head nagging and telling me that no one really wants to listen to this, so SUBJECT CHANGE!

Great. My phone is ringing. Is that a sign from the universe that I should stop because this is going poorly? Hey, Universe. You are mean. I will keep writing. Oh, and here my laptop battery just blinked that it only has 10% power left and my computer security warning popped up. Wooow. Real subtle, Universe. That's right, I see what you'regetting at there. Don't worry only a minute left. And there's my phone again! Okay, I get it. I'll pick it up. TIME OUT.

Oh man, so this was my text message. From my boss. "Sryyyyy can u put the neuraol basal media in the top level fridge and pennstrep and horse serum in freezer."  Please, someone else explain to me what that means, and what in the world is horse serum. I am scared to go to work now.

I'll check reactions to this post before decided to do it again. Somehow I feel it might not be my style quite right. Have no fear, though. At least it was a post this week. Maybe something crazy and unexpected will happen soon that I will want to spill out over the internet, but until then, take care my dear readers.