Hectic

Last week was interesting, and by interesting I mean, yes, hectic. It's rather sad that it was a short week too, but because of a combination of it being a short week and INS's sense of timing, I took the train back to Davis Monday morning, took another train back to Santa Clara Tuesday afternoon, to have my mom drive me back Wednesday morning so I would only miss one of my classes, which I then made up for by attending a different session Wednesday night so I'd be prepared for the quiz Thursday morning. (It's physics, in case you're wondering.) That's not to mention the organic chemistry midterm on Friday right after a Latin quiz. But we have a Latin quiz every week, so I don't suppose I should factor that in anymore. Oh yes, and worked on Thursday and Friday afternoon in the invasive woody plants lab.

Now that'd bring me up to my bio midterm this Thursday, except I feel compelled to mention that I have just finished adjusting my schedule for spring quarter and I'm waitlisted for only one class, where I'm the first person on the list which means I have a pretty good chance of getting in the class and I will NOT have to stay in school for twelve hours on Mondays and Wednesdays (SCORE!). I'll post my schedule once I get the .doc file cleaned up a little, and the excel file, too. I have classes named structure/function of biomolecules, and bioenergetics and metabolism. It would all be very intimidating except I find myself inevitably fascinated by bioenergetics, which is probably a bad sign but hey, owner of the geek license here.

Getting another kitty to socialize tomorrow! Will post pictures and other stuff once I get around to it. My to-do list is growing at an alarming rate.

Garden update

I have very confused peas. I wonder if it's a good idea that I've sown more of them this year than I did the last, given how confused they are. Annie, this is your warning. The peas are confused.

Explanation: Most vegetables are annuals. Peas are annuals. They sprout, they grow, they flower, make peas, and die. Like cucumber and tomato and bunch of other normal stuff. Having planted them late last summer to appease my mom, when the cucumber and tomato plants have died off I said to myself that okay, peas are a cool season crop, I'd give them a few more weeks and then start planning for next year.

I was just in the garden and the peas from last year are flowering and I've managed to harvest another handful of peas. It's...not just the mild climate, because plant life cycles don't just depend on climate, otherwise the cucumbers'd still be alive too. The peas are not dead. They don't plan on dying. They are very stubborn about not dying. I wonder if something's awry with their biological clock because they're supposed to be gone a month ago. Huh.

Otherwise: planted green onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, and a variety of flowers today. Will attempt to save mom's plant which is dying from over-watering (as in half of the root system have rotted off) but don't know how that will turn out. The ants have gotten to what's left of my potting soil and the weeds are attempting to take over the vegetable patch. I pulled out a dandelion whose root diameter is nearly the size of a silver dollar and...wow, I didn't know they could get that big.

I wonder if the good weather'll last.

So okay, it's another week

Physics and Latin apparently do not require glasses much, and I got through them without really missing anything. Ochem was another matter though, since the teacher writes messily when she reaches the end of the board and subscripts, not to mention all the tiny delta plus and minus marks to denote the charges, were just white blurs to me. Luckily the professor's not very creative and tends to use exactly the same molecules as the ones mentioned in the book for examples, so it'll take me a good extra two- three hours to go through the book, since I'll now have to cross-reference my notes with them, but still do-able. We'll see what happens in bio tomorrow.

Georgia cries outside of my door in the morning. Still. I wonder how I can train her off of that. Now that Rose's gone, she's also taken over my bed. I feel like that as long as my room door is open, there will always be a cat on my bed to shove over every time I want to sit/lie down.

Work was...well...not stressful at all, which is good, but rather boring, which is bad. But come next quarter I'll have to earn my research unit and do a bunch of reading so that should take care of the boring part. Jennifer, who's the PhD in charge, was very nice and seems quite keen on being friends with us. She had to leave a little early though but called Mike (the other one who's in charge) on her way home to share with us the fact that apparently, HER cat had puked in her shoes last night and she'd only noticed it just now.

It's times like these that I feel thankful about the wailing outside of my door in the morning.

Follow up?

Nope, still no glasses and I really should be freaking out because my one backup pair is in Beijing with my dad right now and I'm half blind after dark without my glasses. By "should be" of course I mean "was", as in I dreamed about finding my glasses three separate times last night which is really quite pathetic but allowed because, as stated above, NEED GLASSES.

However, it's "was" and not "am" because as all those who'd gone through the flooding anti-phobia training will tell you, the human body is incapable of maintaining a state of high distress beyond a certain length in time, after which you'll either feel calmer even though you aren't or you collapse. This is distressing, but not that distressing, and I am logical. Somehow I'll manage to work through it even though the specific "how" still eludes me at the present point, but as I'm finding out, I tend to get more creative ideas when I'm working under stress. That can't be good, health-wise, but oh well.

Georgia cried outside of my door all morning and tried to get inside by sticking her paw under the door and--I don't know--feel for a latch or something. Made cake this morning and will have extra chocolate frosting to go with toast for the rest of the week.

First day at work tomorrow: we've 4480 pots to fill with dirt.

Eh?

Rose's left for her adoption home today and it was ...more unexpected--the process I mean--that what was expected since I suddenly discovered just after we finished loading the kitties (Georgia's going to her adoption fair too) that I couldn't find my glasses. I could drive doing the day without my glasses provided I know the way, because I need them mostly to read road signs, and since we were pressed on time and Rose absolutely HAD to get there on time today--she was getting adopted, after all--I drove there without my glasses. Now, come dark it's a different matter. I refuse to get behind the steering wheel after dark without my glasses so... massive glasses search and...I still haven't found my glasses yet.

Eek.

I do beg your pardon

This week feels abnormally long for no reasons that I can fathom. It's not that there're more things that usual that're happening this week: one midterm, one quiz, a job orientation, that's it. In terms of psychological distress I've dealt with far worse. It's completely illogical that I should feel burnt out by Friday or so utterly relieved that thank God, the academic week is over, two day break and the next one, please.

I'm not so sure how much of a break the weekend will be, though, since I'll be going home next weekend and therefore it'll be necessary for me to finish things ahead of time, and finish as much of them as possible. There'll always be other stuff to do at home--weeding for example: my mom had recently reported to me that "green things are coming up in the yard, but I'm not sure which are the ones you planted and which ones are weeds." I'll get to plant some more stuff, which will be soothing. I don't mind the working in the garden part, it's all very relaxing and therefore a perfect counter point to the other aspects of being at home. Home is not a place to return to anymore. Not necessarily, at least. Home is where to go to find unconditional support and necessary pressure and to remember that I actually do fit into other people's lives, whatever that might mean. But home is not a place to take a break in anymore. Davis is where I return to each day, each weekend, and where I lock myself in my room for three hours with a book of my choice, because that's how I relax. I avoid calling Davis "home" in Chinse. It confuses my parents, maybe even upsets my mom a little because it was her gift to me, her promise, that as long as she's alive I'll have always have a home, wherever she is, to go back to.

Ah well.

Rose's adoption application's finalized and she'll be leaving this Saturday. We're all very proud of her because she was adopted, after all, at her second adoption fair (Annie and I agreed that the pathetic noises she made must've worked really well). Georgia, therefore will be fostered by us until she gets adopted and currently we're going to have to do a little bit of training with her, teaching her that the counters are a no-go and to stay away from my plants. (So far I'm just thankful I didn't plant anything that's actually poisonous when ingested.)

Meanwhile-- Friday!

Never quite

On Thursday of this week we received our second foster kitty, Georgia, from Lory, her original foster mom. Problems with roommates, it seems, can also play a vital role in whether or not cat-fostering is do-able and I took a moment to reflect that I should be thankful that both of my roommates are more than tolerant of animals.

Oh yes, Georgia. Her bio's here. Like Rose she's a brown and black tabby mix. However she is full grown and short-haired, which makes her appear a whole lot slimmer than Rose, even though Rose's actually thinner. By which I mean Georgia looks skinny until she sits down, at which point you notice she's a little chubby on the stomach, whereas when Rose sits her weight flatten out her fur and you realize that all that volume's just...well...fur. Half of which eventually end up in the lint trap.

Rose went to her second adoption fair today and returned slightly less traumatized than her first time. As in, she didn't cry all the way there or all the way back. She'll never like her carrier though, I'm afraid but oh well, there is only so far any one person (or cat) can go.

Went with Annie and Kate to Cafe Mediterranean yesterday for dinner and in the conversation was denounced for being racist against white chocolate, which is, I think, listed right after being racist against green potatos (and yes at one point the conversation did make sense). The food was good though, and neither cat had disassembled anything while we were away. It was a good day. Except for the homework part, but it's a weekend and so that's not something I can get out of. Yes at this stage I'm rambling off now so I'll stop--