I'm approaching my first finals here at AIS. I suppose this should be a time to reflect on my first semester, though I suspect I'll have an easier time doing so after said finals are over.

Some initial thoughts, though:

• I didn't have a good handle coming in on where I stood in relation to the rest of AIS's population (this is the problem with comparing myself to frosh from RSI and my dorm). If I put in a quantity of work less than or equal to the amount of work I put in during high school, I emerge with passing grades. That said, if I actually were to work--if I actually put in the effort--I am fully capable of doing quite well. I'll approach next semester with this attitude from the start, instead of realizing it near the end, when it's already too late (alternately, will work harder when grades actually count).
• I spend a lot of time with Jason. Steadily more time as the semester has progressed, and particularly more time now that we hauled a second bed into his room and sleeping there is actually comfy. I'm not sure if this (the time spending, I mean, not the bed. The bed is great) is a good thing. On the one hand, being with him makes me happy, and I think he's a good influence--he encourages me to let loose a little more than I otherwise would, and he presses me to work harder. On the other hand, is spending so much time with him making me miss out on the whole college experience? I don't know, but then, how could I know about what I don't have?

I'm happy, though, like I said. So, so happy.

The boy in question, though, is rather annoyed with me at the moment. We played in a live-action role playing game last night that was 1920s themed. I was a flapper, he was a jazz musician. He was madly in love with me, I was a lesbian involved in a sordid affair with the wife of Hollywood's biggest star. Needless to say, I didn't pay much attention to him until I realized I desperately needed money, but then it turned out he needed money too, so I got him to assist me in murdering the woman he owed money to (she had killed my father long, long ago). Then I went shrieking off to the rest of the party, framing him in the process. It was, overall, quite awful of me. It worked, though, and I accomplished two of my objectives--I got Jason's character to stop following me around, and I avenged my father's death (well, suspected murder--I wasn't able to get enough money together to fund a full-on investigation. He ended up shooting me as he was dragged out of the club (one of my former whores had shown up and framed poor Jason for killing a mob boss), and I died quite tragically. It was really awesome, in my opinion, but he was rather annoyed.

The 18.02 tests are getting harder--this one took me 25 minutes instead of 15. Someone else finished at the same time I did (or finished sooner and checked their work) and came down to hand it in. The proctor blinked at him confusedly and said "you're done!?!" Sound carries pretty well in the room, and for some reason people thought it was hilariously funny that someone could finish so fast (at least, that's the impression I've gotten). I'm beginning to lose faith in my peers. About five minutes later, someone else got up, handed his test over and said "That's it! It really is! I'm calling my father today and dropping the hell out of this school." He then chucked his writing utensils into the door and stormed out amid mild chuckling (we are apparently not the most sympathetic sort). It was, overall, quite dramatic. I handed mine in a couple of minutes later. The proctor blinked at me, too (I, erm, may have arrived slightly late) but, wisely, chose not to comment.

Quality stuff, that.

In other news, I failed my first test two days ago (it was, of course, not in 18.02). I'm pretty sure it gave me the kick in the ass I needed to snap out of my complacency, at least as far as 3.091 goes. I've been working on chem round the clock, and I've gotten through nearly a month of material in two days. I haven't started the practice tests yet (I get to take a makeup exam on Monday). And I have to write an 8 page paper for Tuesday (I've started the research phase, and I have a general idea of what I want to write, but that's it). And a physics pset for Tuesday, which I also haven't made progress in.

But it's okay. Life is good. Math is fun, physics is interesting, and next semester I'm taking nothing but math, physics, and an extremely non-intensive HASS class.

I look forward to it. The fact that the physics classes are likely to be quite difficult is irrelevant.

Things I have done today:

I successfully woke up in time for my chem recitation. Well, kind of. I set an alarm for 9:15, took my medication, considered showering, then ended up going back to sleep for half an hour. But I was actually on time, so all is well.

I worked out what grades I need to get on my finals...I should stop doing work. I should stop doing work now. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm actually capable of ceasing to work entirely, but I really ought to get my UROP app out.

I finished my calculus pset. I wrote a small quantity of equations on my review sheet for my chem test tomorrow, but I'm intending to get done as much of it as I can in 20 minutes, then go listen to Stephen Chu. Because, well, Stephen Chu. Also,  free frozen yogurt in 27 minutes, and free dinner in 56. I love not having to find my own food. I also had free lunch today, so, for realsies, life is good.

I'm sitting in a hallway in my dorm and waiting for the bleach to set in my hair. I'm dyeing a chunk of it in the bottom some mix of blue and purple; hopefully it'll end up turning cool colors.

Now Victor is photographing my very much whitened hair, although the guys are going to leave to go play DDR. Anyways, Maya is a wonderful human being who is very kind to me and others like me.

Yup. In other news, the lack of a physics pset has resulted in me not doing particularly much work. There's a cat sniffing my legs. For some reason I trust Maya's cat much more than I trust those on Jason's floor.

My phone rang literally right as I was typing Jason (it was, of course, Jason). Anyways, he might end up coming over and dyeing a bit of his own hair, though I suspect we'll just end up eating. Enrique is chasing Maya's cat, which has triggered an allergic reaction in my arm, which is unfortunate.

Where did Maya go, I should rinse my bleach out. Panicpanicpanicpanic.

I will now resist the urge to insert emoticons into my blog.

I'm writing a paper.
No you're not, Tea, you're writing a blog post.
Am not.
Are too.
Am not.
Are too.
Am not.
Are too.
This sounds like the sort of argument I have with my boyfriend.
Your boyfriend sounds like an idiot.
He's not.
Are you sure?
Yes, he's just occasionally somewhat dense.
I don't think you're writing a paper right now.
That's because I'm not.
Aren't you?
Well, I should be. I just don't seem to care enough about why we got into the Iraq war.
But it's important!
But I'd rather do math! Also, Archie just called me. Apparently he's really dissatisfied with the social scene at his college of choice and is going to try to transfer here. I wished him luck, but, well--transfers here don't really work.
I guess this is what comes of trying to play the admissions game.
Don't be mean.
Why not?

If I can just make it through Thursday, everything will be fine. If I can just manage to stay focused, and actually study for my tests and actually do my pset properly and learn the goddamn material and be prepared, everything will turn out okay.

I think 3.091 will be easy, if I make a sufficiently detailed formula sheet. I think that 17.40 will not be easy but that I don't have time to prepare for it. I think that 8.022 will be hard as fuck.

I think that I am too lazy to keep AIS's alias from getting out, but that's really a-okay.

James left at some point. I'm not sure where he went. Victor is still here. The froshlings are making a piñata for this weekend, because our floor is having a party and, for whatever reason, parties necessitate piñatas, and, for whatever reason, the froshlings are in charge.

I wonder how long I'll actually end up staying at said party, and how late my a capella group will end up making me.

In other news, physics is really difficult. Also, I've been dropping f-bombs left and right in my speech, and it makes it really difficult to type like a relatively appropriate person.

I'm stressed as hell, yet I keep forgetting to be stressed. I'm at AIS, where a mistake never to be lived down is that James mistakenly said that the sun rotates around the Earth. I'm at AIS, where there are fucked up people (I'm looking at your sexist comments, Linguini). I love it here, though. Life is glorious.

I feel like a hand-height section of my torso around the vicinity of my bellybutton has been filled with knives. I know I'd been saying for the past few days that I'd rather have the cramps than the soreness that precedes it, but at this point I'd go back in an instant.

At the very least, now I'm working on my math pset instead of going to a physics recitation. Which kind of counts as being productive. But, mostly, I just hurt.

That was written a while ago. Now it's much, much later, and I'm back at the dorm, and I'm pretending that it's still the 28th because it isn't 6 am yet. Being silly on Bonfire is a heck of a lot of fun. James continues to be highly ticklish, and Ruby is continuing her efforts to learn what girls James thinks are cute (so far--there is at least one computer science girl at AIS who I also know who is attractive. Also, James doesn't want a trophy wife when he grows up).

In other news, Victor's hair is incredibly fluffy, I babble about things I shouldn't when I get tired, and Nicole squees about gay boys and cats. I squee about astronomy, though (not, as Nicole thought, astrology. Good god...), so it kind of works out.

Now, I really should sleep. Even if sleep is for the weak.

Someone said that in 13 Days, which we watched for my foreign policy class. "Sleep is for the weak." So the statement could not have originated with Becton.

Too Many Things

Ken finally decided to ask for my student evaluations from this summer. This means that I have to finish writing them (I have three left at this point), which is kind of a problem, because it interferes with what time I have to goof off and be thoroughly unproductive (which is actually a surprising quantity. Well, that or I've gotten very use to taking advantage of what little empty times I can eke out during the day).

I'm with my physics study group right now. People suddenly started saying "derp derp derp" and it sounded like rain.

Now I'm still being unproductive. I have to do a "library assignment" for chem (Can we use the internet to search for journals? Yes we can!), and finish a two page essay for my foreign policy class tomorrow (and by "finish" I also mean "start."). And then there's the math pset due on Thursday that I probably won't start until Wednesday night.

In other news, I'm waiting for the day that I go to call Jason and accidentally contact Ken. Because they're alphabetically next to each other on my phone, and I'm really not that observant of an individual.

Now, I should probably go and be productive. Because that would probably be a good idea.

I'm really really hungry right now. 19:30 is a very long way away. But eating now would be stupid, because I have gym class at 14:00, which isn't very long from now. I think I'm veering into the level of "things no one actually cares to read about," but I can't think of any actually good stories.

Sketchy Bowls of Coffee

I have officially arrived at AIS. And it is, to say the least, completely and utterly awesome. My dorm is really, really awesome. The people are really varied. Some of them, at first, were somewhat intimidatingly strange, but I'm already adjusting to thinking of the oddballs as "normal," and I think it wouldn't take very long for me to start thinking of them as friends.

Anyways, I'm trapped here for the day due to the whole hurricane beeswax. I was sitting lazily in the lounge right outside my room. Then I wandered into someone else's room, where she talked about her lab job and what things are available for painting. Then Yuma showed up, and I briefly communicated with him, then left him and Victor sitting in the lounge when I went up a floor to an even that is being called "Physics and Coffee."

I haven't seen any coffee yet, but there are donuts, and there appears to be some sort of donut-shaped cake. Hopefully Yuma is managing himself alright. I suspect he's capable of that sort of thing.

There are a couple of girls here who got temped in other dorms but have pretty much been spending all of their time at my dorm. For some reason, I find them bothersome, but I think that's just because over-earnestness annoys me. At least, I think that's the problem.

Hopefully the physics starts soon, or I have the opportunity to start eating the donuts.

There is an upright piano in the lounge. An international student whose name I've forgotten is doing math on the board. Something about number theory and bose distributions...COFFEE TIME

Every Day, It's a Gettin Closer

Movie night last night. We watched The Prestige, which was completely amazing.

My arms are sore, particularly the insides of my forearms. I think it's from doing pull-ups on the diving board yesterday, but regardless of what it's from, it makes typing incredibly uncomfortable.

I miss Julie and Cammie, but at least Julie will be back soon. Snuggling with her with would have been a good antidote to the moie-night-induced "last time I did this I had a cuddle buddy" issue, but it is what it is, and I'm fine.

I'm through the roof excited for AIS. Just like before I left for RSI this summer, I'm spending so much energy being excited that I'm not bothering to savor what I have. But, then, there's not all that much to savor beyond solitude, and I've certainly been savoring plenty of that. Well, there's Nyx, who is currently at her second to last day of work, but I'm probably going to sleep over at her house tonight, and I'll be bothering the heck out of her these coming days, so I'm not missing anything right this second. Julie is in Michigan visiting Timothy, and Cammie is already at college, and Kathrya is long gone, so no dice there. Yuma is around, but I'll see him in a week anyways. There are a few other people, but no one that I'm desperate to see, no one I'm going to be striving to keep up with in the coming years.

Just my family, really, but I spent two weeks ensconced with them, and, well, they're my family. I'll keep in touch with them, and, really, I'll always make time to see them.

I'm ready to go, and I'm excited, and, unlike last time, I'm not going to feel like I'm missing out on anything at home. So this time, I think, all is well.

New and Old and In-Between

I had never been to Dairy Queen prior to last night. For some reason, it strikes me as a midwestern kind of thing, but I honestly don't know why.

A good crowd came bouldering last night: me (duh), Cammie, Nyx, Argon, Nimue, Kerry, Yuma, and Annika. Granted, I personally didn't do all that much in the way of actual bouldering--it should be clear by now that athletic activity is not my strongsuit--but I did make an attempt, and I did succeed in hauling myself up a few of the V-naught level walls and falling gracelessly down onto the mats.

I ended up sitting for probably more than an hour in a powwow circle with Yuma, Argon, and Nimue. It had been quite some time since I'd talked to Argon and Nimue, so that was certainly nice. It was strange to hear about high school again, because it feels like graduation was a lifetime ago. The senior summer flew by, but, at the same time, it feels like this is the only existence I've ever known, if that makes even the slightest bit of sense.

I'm crossing my fingers for Argon getting into AIS. He deserves it if anybody does (though he is on my mental list of "people who might end up ditching us for that other, extremely geographically proximate school. That boy really ought to actually join science bowl, because I think his help is going to be desperately needed.

In other news, both he and Nimue are taking bucketfuls of AP classes and working on college apps and pretty much sitting right where I was a year ago (well, slightly different--Argon has a more rigorous schedule than I did, Nimue's is less so). It feels so distant, though. I'm a bit worried about getting to college and diving into schoolwork again. I'm worried my mind has forgotten how to be fully intellectually engaged.

Think how bad it would be if I'd taken the fellowship and waited two years. That no doubt would have been a nightmare.

After both bouldering and DQing, Cammie went back to her house to pack up the car and, in the morning, leave.

She's our first departure. Well, technically our second, but no one had thought that Kathrya wouldn't be coming back. I hadn't even had sufficient time to get used to the haircut, but I suppose that's what skype is for. Even so, I already miss Cammie and her silliness--but I know that once I get to AIS, home will be the last thing on my mind.

Besides, it's going to be good to be somewhere new (well, maybe not 'new', but at least not here). I'd gotten way too used to having someone's arm around me on these outings, and I'm not sure now is the time to be thinking about--well, I'm sure you all know.

Ah, well. It is what it is, as always. I think I'm going to try to find a watch and some goggles and swim some laps. It'd be good for me.

Stuffity Stuff Stuff Stuffs

Finally came up with a name for college of choice: the  Academic Institute of Schooliness, abbreviated to AIS.

I'm currently helping Cammie pack for school. Well, I'm using my computer and laughing at occasional funniness. Annika is rooting through all of Cammie's drawers and digging out everything worth packing. Now Annika has given up on that and is rooting through Cammie's drawers looking for things to take.

I'm going to attempt to go bouldering tonight. I strongly suspect that I am far to weak and pathetic to succeed at this sort of activity, but I'm still going to spend $7 trying. It's also another chance to bond with my wonderful high school buddies, and I'll get to see Nyx, which is a particularly wonderful perk.

I'm going to get off of the computer, now.