A Graph of the Day

This is what my day felt like today.

10:45- Wake up, internet, shower, and plan the assassination of my friend. An entire day and all i have to do is print ten pictures.
12:30- I begin printing my photography final.
12:40- My printer prints a sheet of red and gold streaks, and i mess with some settings.
12:50- It prints another sheet of streaks, and i resign myself to the McMaster (MM) lab.
1:00- I remember that my cameras were due at noon, and now i owe a $10 late fee.
1:10- I gather everything for the trek to MM because i only want to make it once, wipe the SD card, and realize that i don’t have anything to put my prints in.
2:00- I head to Russel, long check-out line, when was Mother’s Day?
2:30- Sheet protectors and presentation folder= $2.20. I’m proud of Russel for not ripping me off more thoroughly. =)
2:36- Mother’s Day is May 10th, i’m still good.
2:40- Paycheck and a HUGE package.
2:50- The package is from Aggie Moms! lunch, Maria’s note, picture frame gets “This is the Day that the Lord had Made” stuck in my head. =)
3:10- Media guy doesn’t charge me the late fee and lets me re-check out the D80.
3:15- My professor is in the printing lab.
3:20- I print my first pic, not great, but not horrible either.
3:25- I continue printing, and the pictures are consistently darker than they should be.
3:30- I print “Too Poor for Shaving Cream” and it’s so dark that i risk using my last spare sheet of paper.
3:50- I finish printing and have a surplus of sheet protectors, so i can add a cover sheet.
4:00- My professor is still “out to lunch” (from 3:25ish), so i can’t turn in the digital files.
4:10- I turn in the prints and begin to wait for my professor.
4:20- The last person leaves the lab, and the air conditioning is beginning to get to me.
4:40- I give up waiting and resign myself to walking back to MM later at the actual exam time.
5:30- I try to burn the files onto a CD so i can just put them in the box instead of trying to find my prof, but my computer tells me to “insert a disc.” Seriously? Fine, i’ll burn it at MM if the prof isn’t there.
5:45- My professor isn’t there. How do you burn on a Mac?
6:00- You don’t. Any cars want to take a shot? I’m so ready for you.
6:05- My mp3 player has juice.
6:15- Screaming along with Skillet and reflecting on the insanity of the day.

Final Dreams

I had my first finals nightmare this morning. For years my parents have been telling me horror stories about finals nightmares: you dream you slept through your final; you dream you have a final for a class you never knew you had and have, therefore, never been too; etc. Last semester i approached finals week with trepidation only to be pleasantly surprised by the lack of nighttime distress. I even began to wonder if my parents were just exaggerating to make a good story. Today i learned the truth about finals nightmares.

My dream began as i stood up to perform my piece for my voice final. I had practiced extensively and, though nervous, was confident. The accompanist played through the intro measures, and i inhaled for the first note.

“Hands touch, eyes meet.”

I was astounded by the richness of my voice. It sounded much more like Idina Menzel than anything that had ever come out of my mouth. Excited and bursting with confidence, i inhaled for the next line. And stopped. My mind went blank. What was the next line? What were the lyrics?!  I had no idea. I just stood there while my accompanist played on. Everyone looked at me, waiting, but i had nothing. Panic overtook me, and i woke up freaking out and still trying to remember the lyrics.

My voice final is tomorrow, and i’m so ready for it to be over.

The Mom Restiction

When you live at home, you have a mom (or some equally parental figure who, for the sake of convenience, we will be calling “mom”). The tragedy of the mom is you don’t realize how awesome she is until she’s gone. Sure you notice the obviously awesome things like home-made cookies and kisses for your boo-boos, but today i missed a part of my mom that i had always looked forward to leaving behind.

As a child you are bound by the mom restriction. You want to go out and play, but mom says, “No you can’t; you have to do your homework first.” You want to go to a sleep over, but mom says, “No you can’t; you have responsibilities at home.” You hate this constraint as a kid and long for the freedoms of college and beyond. Today i missed the mom restriction.

As crazy as it sounds, friends understand the mom restriction. You want to play, but your mom won’t let you. It’s not your fault; it’s the tyranny of the mom. What happens when you don’t have a mom to blame anymore? “I can’t; i have to do my homework” or “I can’t; i have responsibilities at home” without the authority of mom sound empty and more like a blow-off. What they don’t understand is that it never really was mom who was restricting you, but reason and responsibility, and those don’t change with your address. I’m not any freer than i was at home; i just lost my scapegoat.

Unconscious Alarms

This morning i remembered why i don’t use alarm clocks. Approximately four hours after i closed my eyes last night, my consciousness woke to the screams of my subconscious:

>Make it stop! Make it STOP!!
>uuuuuuh…”snooze”….”stop”….uuuuhhh

My consciousness, still not fully aware, instinctively went for the “stop” button. Then i had a thought.

>Stephen.

But why? Did he call me? I don’t think so. Answering hadn’t been a choice. Oh i think i can call him. As i scrolled through the ‘S’s my consciousness finally caught up. This was a phone in my hand (as opposed to an alarm clock), but it was the alarm function that woke me. The reason it went off was so that i could call Stephen to see if he was awake. By the time i figured all of this out my subconscious had already hit “call” and his phone was ringing. Turns out he was awake. Awesome. Unfortunately the adrenaline that had flooded my system to wake me up took approximately seven more minutes to wear off than i would have liked.

A little less than two hours later, my body woke itself up for my first class:

no adrenaline + no confusion = much better way to start the day

=D

I think it’s going to be a good day.

The Music Expedition

There i was, sitting comfortably in my room. I was eating my lunch and reading wikipedia (who knew that the world record for most spoken words per minute is 595?) when i got a call from Jena. It went something like this:

Jena: Hey, do you want to go to the music building…practice…need sheet music…STEPHEN, HEY STEEEEEEEEPHEEEEEEEEEEEEN!!!!!
Me: You can get sheet music online.
Jena: …hymns…i’ll call you back later.

Normally a phone conversation like this would be confusing and possibly even worrisome. With Jena, however, i have learned to just ignore it, and if she really needs me for something she’ll make herself clear. So i was unruffled when i returned to my lunch and wikipedia, and unsurprised when Jena called back, more clearly this time:

Jena: Where can you find sheet music online? I want a hymn….eight measures…
Me: Musicnotes.com has the first page of pretty much any song you could want.
Jena: Ok thanks.

My lunch was not quite as warm as it had been, but it still tasted good.

Jena: How do i get the music off the internet?
Me: You’re going to have to take a screen shot. Use the print screen key.
Jena: uuuuh

(Jena has a mac. I don’t. Consequently i have no idea where the print screen button is on her computer.)

Me: It’ll have “Print Screen” “Prt Sc” or something similar on it. Just look for it. (Meanwhile i google “printscreen on mac”)
Jena: Maybe Kurtis knows where it is.
Me: It’s on the F3 key.
Jena: I don’t have F keys.
Me: Yes you do, they’re along the top.
Jena: No i don’t!
Me: *sigh* Fine. I’m coming up.

I look regretfully at the rest of my lunch and head up the stairs to Jena’s room. I take one look at her computer, and there on the top row are the function keys. On F3 is a picture of a screen (stupid macs can’t just use words that people might actually be able to understand). After taking a screen shot, i ask Jena what her default image program is so i can paste it somewhere (who’da thunk you’d miss paint?). She, of course, had no idea.

Me: *sigh* Screw this. We’re doing it my room with my computer.

I return to my room, push the remains of my lunch aside and open a new tab over wikipedia. I am on the verge of printing the first page of her chosen hymn when Jena remembers that she’s supposed to get the song in four vocal parts cause of something Anna said that she never really fully explained, but i gathered that it had something to do with Jena’s total loss in the world of computers and her zero experience with Finale. Mildly annoyed, i just search for songs with four vocal parts and grab the first one (Jena also seemed to be in a bit of a rush, but she didn’t explain that either). I printed it while shoveling down the last bits of food, and we head to the Music Building to play with Finale.

I don’t ever use the music library. In fact i never do anything with the school of music at all, so when we got on the computer and it wanted some password to use Finale, i didn’t know what you were supposed to do. Twenty minutes later (i was going around asking all the people who were pretty much useless) Dizzy comes in and informs us that you need an account and saves us the hassle of creating one by letting us use his. We open Finale and it has a nice “new piece wizard” which i tell Jena to use. We had fun finding all the instruments, and then started sticking notes on the page. I think we had all of one note down before Jena realized the tenor part was written in treble clef.

Jena: *Panic attack. Call Robby.*
Me: Dude chill. Let’s see if one of these buttons will fix it, if not we can just put it on the piano part and copy it over to the tenor part, and Finale will transpose it.

It’s around this point that Jena informs me the music library closes at five. Which gives us about ten more minutes. I roll my eyes and we start putting more notes on the page. Every new things is an adventure. Where are the rests? How do i make a note dotted? AH! That’s not what i meant to do! How do i fix it? Jena is definitely out of her element when it comes to computers.

From the day’s adventure i have two pieces of advice for all the non-computer people.

1. Don’t try to rush. Even computer experts are unable to make a computer perform under a rapidly aproaching deadline.
2. Breathe and don’t be afraid to try buttons or search the help menus. That’s how you learn a program. You don’t need nearly as much hand-holding as you think you do if you just take the time to play with it a bit and try it on your own.

The Phone Phobia Saga*

I’m not really sure if my phobia has a beginning. All i know is that as far back as i can remember (admittedly not very far) i have hated phones. When i was a child (elementary and middle school) my phone use was limited to calling my parents for rides and setting up hangout times with my friends. As such, it was high school before my deep and irrational fear was revealed. My mother viewed high school as a training period for life away from home. This attitude meant that she would make me perform essential life tasks (like ordering pizza) that she normally would have done herself. Whenever possible (most of the time) i would find some way to take the phone out of the task. All reputable pizza places have websites that you can order from; most of the information she would have called for i could (after many hours) dig up with google; appointments can be made in person just as easily; etc. In this rather roundabout manner i made it through high school with my fear intact and even strengthened by the few times i was unable to avoid the hated ordeal.

Perhaps i should pause here to explain my phobia in greater detail. I don’t have a problem calling people i know for organizational purposes (really anything under five minutes is fine). I also don’t mind having long conversations with really tight friends or my parents. Anything else though and i’m shaking, sweating, and nervously trying to plan out what i’m going to say while the phone rings.

Anyway, now that i’m in college i no longer have a mother to make the dreaded phone calls for me, and in the past week i have had three phobia calls. The first was the worst: a phone interview. The experience was terrifying, but as this faceless woman interrogated me about my worst flaws i realized that even though i was in agony it was just because of the whole interview process, not the actual phone part. In fact, i marveled as i reacted facially to yet another question i didn’t want to talk about, the phone was actually helping. If this interview were being held in person i would have to keep my face carefully composed throughout the process. I would have had no outlet, and my chances of getting the position would probably have dropped. As revolutionary as this thought was, the experience was still painful and i wasn’t ready to have another phobia phone conversation anytime soon.

The universe had other plans, however, and it wasn’t three days before i had to call my bank. I had forgotten my bank login, and the only way to get it is to call them. So i called, worked through the menus and finally got a human on the other end. As usual, i misunderstood about half of what she said, but unlike the pizza people, the bank lady had the patience of Anne Sullivan. She calmly and cheerfully corrected all my confusion, and i was successfully able to log in to my bank account. The experience was…painless? I was in shock.

The bank experience gave me some measure of hope when i had to call cingular (or at&t now i guess) the next day to figure out why my phone wasn’t working. Maybe the key is professional phone people? Or maybe i’ve just unconsciously absorbed the ability to talk on the phone? In any case i was actually mildly confident as i dialed the number and not cringing at the inevitable suffering. I worked through the menus and got a person without even having to go on hold. I explained my problem, learned that you’re supposed to turn your phone off once a day to get updates (oops), got updates, updated their system on my phone (my first trip to the gym led to a string of events ending in a walmart go-phone instead of the Nokia brick they thought i had), found out that my phone was no longer supported (oops), got transferred to a tech guy, and learned that they knew about the problem, were working on it, and it would probably be fixed by the next morning. Not only was the experience painless it was even mildly….entertaining? More shock.

Is it possible that my phobia may be fading? Am i becoming normal? I may just have to re-declare war on the squirrels.

*Click here for the Deleted Scenes!

A Beautiful Day!

This should be the last one, but i’m not making any promises in case we get something really cool like a tornado or a blizzard.

On Weight and Worth

A couple of weeks ago Jena took me Bible shopping because i have a horrible propensity for losing Bibles. (I’ve actually only lost two, but each caused a deep, aching pain, slow to heal.) I had narrowed the extensive selection down to two individuals when i posed the question to Jena: should i get the Life Application Study Bible, 5x7x1.5* and roughly four pounds, complete with concordance, maps, study notes, cross-references, biographies, and other miscellaneous tidbits, or should i get the compact NIV, 3.5×5.5x.5 and closer to one pound, that would fit in a purse, carry-on, camera backpack and other convenient locations?

After extensive debate, we decided on the giant study Bible. Last night i was able to experience both the pros and the cons of that decision and (happily) discover that the pros do outweigh the cons.

The cons presented themselves (really itself) as we walked the mile or so to church, then to Baker Bros, Russel, and finally back to Maxcy. It wasn’t too heavy to carry, but it was bulky and awkward especially when trying to assemble dinner at Russel. While we were eating dinner, however, the verse on wives submitting to their husbands was brought up, and Jena, Becca, and i were unable to recall the exact instructions for husbands. This question led me to the concordance to look up “submit” and locate Colossians 3:18. This was unfortunately not the passage Stephen was referring to, though it was the only one on that topic under “submit.” Undeterred, i checked the study notes at the bottom of the page in Colossians. There it reiterated the passage and referenced Ephesians 5:21-6:9 for similar instructions. In Ephesians Paul writes that husbands are to love their wives just as Christ loved the Church. Success! Knowledge is worth the weight.

Side Note: I wonder if this is how people learned stuff before google?

*All measurements are estimates from memory and may bear only a fleeting resemblance to reality.

Another Night of Fail

The beginning of today was excellent. Slept til 11. Read til 1. Lunch. River. Movies, friends, and delivery pizza. Then i decided to actually read through the emails about summer project before heading to bed. I had glanced over them when i first got them, and it was all the basic “welcome to summer project, here’s some of what’s going on, and links to all the info.” Little did i know that the third email was different. Not only did it contain all the “get around to it when you have time” info, but hidden at the bottom of the third attachment was the heading “Immediate Attention Required.”

Oops.
How immediate? When did i even get this email?
Oh only three days ago. That’s not too bad.
“Must respond within 48 hours.”
FAIL

*sigh* Why does fail come in swarms? I think i would prefer the one-at-a-time method used by villains in the movies.