Impending Doom, Gloom, and Random Bits (not depressing)

Hey all,

So it is now end of tuesday when I am typing this, just wanted to reflect on the past few days and vent a little.

Saturday/Sunday:

I spend most of friday with the sentiment and mentality of complete horro at the time to come. I had just "finished" working the summer, now to be reduced to my lowly schedule of working fridays and having only enough to scrape together money for the "necessary necessities" of a college student who spends 4 days at grandmas house, over 4 hours a day traveling every day, and actually only being awake and at home for a few brief hours when not incompacitated by such things as "homework" and "food". It is amazing how much you find yourself in a school full of teachers when you can't afford books and have to bumm them off friends. Maybe it is just me with this situation, but who decided that students paying so much a year and schools getting kickbacks from publishers for selling certain books and a certain amount of new copies (because you need the damn guide or disk) was a good idea?

I found out my mom will be out all weekend, essentially working and going out for fun. I also found out she is leaving for a week and we have no food at the house, even after I wrote a list and she went to the store to get groceries. Anyways, life was stressful, I had to make sure I could manage to live out of a backpack and neck breaking duffel/duffle back. So I spent friday pestering my mom while she gets ready for work, and watching TV with the dog. Who knows, that could have been saturday, but I did nothing but look up 10 different school bus and train schedules for a good chunk of time.

I spend sunday discovering how convoluted CIV IV is compared to CIV REV and just how many hours I am willing to play before declaring war on the asshole who tells me I shouldn't be friends with the french. I take a break for dinner and start getting together my backpack, binders, and sorting out what friends want books and just spending the entire weekend with a dread of not wanting to go through another semester of stupid teachers and classes with a 20-50% being the "highest".

Needless to say, I hardly slept and spent the entire night battling an allergy attack and washing out the duffel/duffle bag that coincidently still contained the piss smell from the last day of last semester.

Monday:

I finally take my first train ride in months, actually buy a ticket from the machine, something I haven't done in years, and make the long wait and bus ride to school. I arrive on campus with at least 3 people asking where the Art 113 room is, when I simply respond, "that hallway, the end on the left" like I had been here before or something. I shift the duffle/duffel bag to the other sholder that doesn't feel like a screwdriver has been jammed down my scapula and the nerve pinched, and proceed to do a number of things with minutes before I arrive at class. I arrive to my children's lit. class, take out my batman spirol and proceed to listen to a lecture about how Tom Sawyer isn't racists and how where in the wild things are is a better book then some other one because it doesn't require as many words.

I take a walk to the computer lab, ask Jimmy if he can open the door, shouting back "Yes" before I even get a word out. 30 minutes later a friend walks in and we proceed to talk about football as if the summer never existed. It is kind of funny how comforting bringing up the same thing and saying the same thing over and over can be to a someone. Happens a few more times, and I end up agreeing to get a ride from another friend, thankfully, because the foot is acting up and I needed some way to get a book for the children's lit. class.

Off to the second class, (two minutes later) video game design. The professor is 5 minutes late and I spend it shouting to the friend 3 feet away and still not hearing a damn thing. Then the lady from the front desk walks in and starts taking role, explaining how the teacher "was on the wrong schedule" and trying to answer questions about nothing until he arrives. So the bike riding italian suit clad game dude walks in and proceeds to ask a bunch of CS students about how much they don't understand robot languages and deciding that we get to use a brand new one because it doesn't have a compiler. Following that with procedures on how to write an email and when, and when not to ask a question to him about a compiler error that has a different name.

A few jokes later we are all gigling and grinning because it is a class about fricking video games and we get to make some by the end of the year. I walk out to my circle of friends I see when walking out and say, "I know it is shocking, but I might actually be excited about a class that requires programming." After they pick their jaws off the floor and say "No way, really?" a few times we walk our own ways and I proceed back to the electronic home that is the lab.

Third class is with the same guy I had last year who held up the book I hated and said aloud the first day "This thing is terrible, we won't be using it." Something the guy who cannot afford a 20 dollar book, let alone the 170 dollar one loves to hear when it is followed by, "Here is a printout of chapter 2 for next time." He walks in, mind you, a professor about and designer of computer chips, and says to Jimmy while pointing at the profector, "Make t work." I giggle to myself, and Jimmy struggles to find out why the optical mouse keeps turning off after 30 seconds and unplugs/plugs-in the stupid thing in order to hit play on the dvd software. After 5 minutes of that the movie starts and I get to watch chips being made again, while trying to combat the 3 hours of sleep I had before. I look at the sylabuss and note that it required EE310L, and the description says something about needing to know how to use CAD software. I practically shit myself at the thought that I need to sign up for a different class, when I spent the last 4 hours next to friends trying to find some of thier own and already being enrolled in two bullshit classes to fill the 12 unit requirement. After the movie finishes, the professor spends 10 minutes trying to discover how to turn the pc off when he turned the projector off first, eventually just holding the power button down.

A student behind me says aloud, "This is the wrong one". I look at him in wonder, trying to find out what dude is talking about. Saying to myself moments later "OH THANK YOU!" because this was a syllabus for a different class. I head home, stop by the book store, and spend 30 minutes trying to get a gps to find "grandma's house" without an address before calling home and getting one.

I arrive with grandma thrilled and excited at my arrival, and being overjoyed at the thought that I will be in the room with the cable box instead of the one with the 13 channel channel knob.

A sleep timer is a wonderful thing.

Tuesday:

I wake up, eat 3 month old stale cheerios for breakfast and watch attack of the show with Jessica Chobotnik on it with her man voice (sore throat?) and spend the morning trying to find something that is actually on and interesting. The time to leave has arrived, and after running upstairs to get my wallet and asking for some change for the bus, I spend 10 minutes trying to explain, "No you don't need to cook for me when I get home, I just want to let you know what is going on." (Maybe that was last night)

Anyways, I head to school with water in hand knowing from monday morning that is isn't going to just be hot, but it will be "dangerously hot". It was last night and is right now, right around 85-90 degrees out. The only fan available is louder then the one at home on high, even on low. So I sweat my ass to school, practically drenched by the time I get there (and am now), arriving up 3 flights of stairs and out of breath in front of the classroom putting away my PSP and piece of shit SHURE headphones.

I enter with the british version of my 4th grade teacher (one of my most memorable and favorites ones I have ever had) lecturing in front of me, laughing as if this was some sort of comedy to see how long I could last until shouting aloud, "I fucking love accents and your sir have a whopper." The jackass behind me is rubbing his leg in front of my seat for 30 minutes, and I stare back 3 times with the dense dumbass still not taking the hint, to rush out and make the phonecall to my dad. I explain how it is haunting that I have 4 classes I actually want to attend, when it has been a weekend of triumphent chanting to myself that I would rather die then go to school again and suffer through another semester of fee hikes, boycotts, and Jetlag from a damn bus to the point where tuesday is saturday and I end up missing a final a day before it happens when I show up at the wrong one.

So I wrote to to bring up something entirely different, which I will share later, but for now it is an hour and a half later, and time to go relax in the 85 degree 10 o'clock heat.