I skipped syntax Tuesday to study for historical. Huge mistake. I find myself burning to know what was covered. And today, I was late to class becuse I had to spin around and go back home to get my homework off the printer. Grr.
It seems the only class I don't have to worry abot is Statistics. Historical was a nightmare, I could have done better on my Phonetics exam, and I feel like I'm dropping the ball in Syntax. Historical, well... That may be a lost cause, but I really LIKE Syntax and Phonetics. So I'll step it up in Historical, but I'm going to mash down the pedal in Syntax and Phonetics.
This might mean that I should pace my work in the lab a littl more to balance things out. This might also mean that I will have to spend less time at home and more time in the office. I need to sit down tonight and truly flesh out a list of priorities, make a concrete plan, and resolve myself to stick to it until Summer.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Problem
Another sleepless night is rolling by, as usual, and I have a big problem.
I need to go to the bathroom REALLY bad, but Sabrina is asleep in my lap. There is no way for me to get up without waking her, and she is so adorable when she's sleeping... I've woken her before when I've needed to get up, and she always gives me that "You son of a bitch, I was sleeping" look that breaks me down everytime.
Frankly, this is one of those moments where I wish I was awake having profound thoughts and thustly putting them down in my new blog. But as it is, I am instead documenting for posterity my wish to pee without disturbing my cat. Maybe I'll get lucky and she'll move to the foot of the bed soon.
I guess while I'm on the subject, NO, I do not know why I can't sleep. I just feel slightly ill at ease, as if there is a great disturbance in the Force. It's not as if I'm doing anything profound or constructive. I finished my homework, so I watched WALL-E as it was recently mentioned in a friend's FB note. And I have to admit it; I did get a little misty when I thought WALL-E was 'gone' after Eve fixed him. It was the same tug of the heart strings I feel when I watch the last few minutes of The Iron Giant.
I guess the only thing to do now is to decide whether to wake her and pee or try to sleep. I'll go with option A. Damn it.
I need to go to the bathroom REALLY bad, but Sabrina is asleep in my lap. There is no way for me to get up without waking her, and she is so adorable when she's sleeping... I've woken her before when I've needed to get up, and she always gives me that "You son of a bitch, I was sleeping" look that breaks me down everytime.
Frankly, this is one of those moments where I wish I was awake having profound thoughts and thustly putting them down in my new blog. But as it is, I am instead documenting for posterity my wish to pee without disturbing my cat. Maybe I'll get lucky and she'll move to the foot of the bed soon.
I guess while I'm on the subject, NO, I do not know why I can't sleep. I just feel slightly ill at ease, as if there is a great disturbance in the Force. It's not as if I'm doing anything profound or constructive. I finished my homework, so I watched WALL-E as it was recently mentioned in a friend's FB note. And I have to admit it; I did get a little misty when I thought WALL-E was 'gone' after Eve fixed him. It was the same tug of the heart strings I feel when I watch the last few minutes of The Iron Giant.
I guess the only thing to do now is to decide whether to wake her and pee or try to sleep. I'll go with option A. Damn it.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Screw Labialization
I totally blanked on Labialization on the phonetics exam, which is the rounding of the lips when pronouncing words that start with a "sh" sound, like "Shhhhhit...I forgot Labialization."
Day One. Still tired from the move...
As I am supposed to be studying for the two exams I have today and tomorrow, I am, of course, not doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I've been playing on facebook for at least 45 minutes. And it occurred to me that I know a bunch of folks who keep blogs. I read through a couple of them tonight and decided that it looks like a nice outlet.
After all, I'm living alone again and am freshly singled. Talking to my cat makes me feel like a crazy person, so I am instead opting to talk to no one in particular. At least now I can say what I want without fear of getting clawed later.
I guess I'll use this for life updates, deep thoughts, venting (if absolutely necessary) and as something to keep my thinking clear on matters. After all, I surely don't want to send something out into the void of the internet unless I'm positive that's how I feel.
For example, I've calculated that once my current downloads finish, my movie harddrive will be well over 85% full of JUST movies, numberring them close to a thousand. I'm amazed that in the few short weeks that I got on this kick, I've amassed over 700 movies already. I backed them up to my portable external HD and took them to a movie night for a friend's birthday party. Twas good fun. In a few weeks, when more of them finish, I'll make the main backup to the 5tb drive.
The exam I should be studying for is Phonetics, especially considering I was half-assing it yesterday and today I spent the 5 hours of GOOD studying I had on Historical Linguistics (Tuesday's Exam). I need to concentrate, but I can't get myself to focus. My first impuls is to drink another Mt Dew and get a snack to break up the time, but if I do too much in too short a time, I'll get hyper and concentrating will be impossible. Then I'll inevitably crash at 5am.
So I'm doing this instead.
In one of my bouts of NOT concentrating last night, I ordered a new black leather collar for Sabrina. I also ordered some 1/2 inch spikes to affix to it. :) It'll make for a nice little project after things calm down academically... ...and at work.
Work went from idle to overdrive in a single heartbeat. I've been cross-trained to check the undergrad's lab work (bleeping out personal info in interview recordings); not just do the computer work. Now that I've been cross-trained, I'm under pressure to alleviate the work of my officemates. However, there is now a sudden and urgent April deadline to perfect software for release in time for a conference I am not going to be attending. That means there is a very long laundry list of worker programs and file checker programs and such that I need to finish implementing SOON so that our Finland collaborators have clean data to work with. And on top of that, I'm trying to get a Quantum tape drive working on the only machine that has a PCI Exp x8 slot: a linux machine running a flavor of linux that I despise.
So I have less than six weeks to accomplish magic, and all the while, I'm being pressured to do two other peoples' jobs. I was offended when the suggestion came up that the undergrad checking load be divided up into thirds to be distributed between us. (A) They get paid more than I do, while I am the one with the unique skill set. (B) I can't divide up my hardware work, network tasks, and C# Java C++ etc programming into three parts. And (C) I'm the only person who stays in the lab past 4pm, e.g., my work isn't done just because it's mid-afternoon.
In other news, yes, I was robbed over Xmas break. The cops have arrested a suspected drug dealer, and while raiding his house, found one of my guns (definitely mine, serial numbers match) and a back room set up for gaming that was full of what may be a very large portion of the stuff that was stolen from my apartment. The detective said they'll be doing a full inventory of what they find in his place and will be comparing it to the detailed list of stolen property I gave them. Then they'll ensure that what's mine is mine, and that it gets returned to me. SWEET.
Well, I've killed enough time. A solid 20 minutes! I'm going to go back over Ch 4 in "A Course In Phonetics." I know you're jealous.
After all, I'm living alone again and am freshly singled. Talking to my cat makes me feel like a crazy person, so I am instead opting to talk to no one in particular. At least now I can say what I want without fear of getting clawed later.
I guess I'll use this for life updates, deep thoughts, venting (if absolutely necessary) and as something to keep my thinking clear on matters. After all, I surely don't want to send something out into the void of the internet unless I'm positive that's how I feel.
For example, I've calculated that once my current downloads finish, my movie harddrive will be well over 85% full of JUST movies, numberring them close to a thousand. I'm amazed that in the few short weeks that I got on this kick, I've amassed over 700 movies already. I backed them up to my portable external HD and took them to a movie night for a friend's birthday party. Twas good fun. In a few weeks, when more of them finish, I'll make the main backup to the 5tb drive.
The exam I should be studying for is Phonetics, especially considering I was half-assing it yesterday and today I spent the 5 hours of GOOD studying I had on Historical Linguistics (Tuesday's Exam). I need to concentrate, but I can't get myself to focus. My first impuls is to drink another Mt Dew and get a snack to break up the time, but if I do too much in too short a time, I'll get hyper and concentrating will be impossible. Then I'll inevitably crash at 5am.
So I'm doing this instead.
In one of my bouts of NOT concentrating last night, I ordered a new black leather collar for Sabrina. I also ordered some 1/2 inch spikes to affix to it. :) It'll make for a nice little project after things calm down academically... ...and at work.
Work went from idle to overdrive in a single heartbeat. I've been cross-trained to check the undergrad's lab work (bleeping out personal info in interview recordings); not just do the computer work. Now that I've been cross-trained, I'm under pressure to alleviate the work of my officemates. However, there is now a sudden and urgent April deadline to perfect software for release in time for a conference I am not going to be attending. That means there is a very long laundry list of worker programs and file checker programs and such that I need to finish implementing SOON so that our Finland collaborators have clean data to work with. And on top of that, I'm trying to get a Quantum tape drive working on the only machine that has a PCI Exp x8 slot: a linux machine running a flavor of linux that I despise.
So I have less than six weeks to accomplish magic, and all the while, I'm being pressured to do two other peoples' jobs. I was offended when the suggestion came up that the undergrad checking load be divided up into thirds to be distributed between us. (A) They get paid more than I do, while I am the one with the unique skill set. (B) I can't divide up my hardware work, network tasks, and C# Java C++ etc programming into three parts. And (C) I'm the only person who stays in the lab past 4pm, e.g., my work isn't done just because it's mid-afternoon.
In other news, yes, I was robbed over Xmas break. The cops have arrested a suspected drug dealer, and while raiding his house, found one of my guns (definitely mine, serial numbers match) and a back room set up for gaming that was full of what may be a very large portion of the stuff that was stolen from my apartment. The detective said they'll be doing a full inventory of what they find in his place and will be comparing it to the detailed list of stolen property I gave them. Then they'll ensure that what's mine is mine, and that it gets returned to me. SWEET.
Well, I've killed enough time. A solid 20 minutes! I'm going to go back over Ch 4 in "A Course In Phonetics." I know you're jealous.
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