I'm Only 5'9 and That's Including My Boot Heel

And I thought November was going by fast...I definitely expected this last week to be the slowest one all semester considering it was the last week of classes.  WRONG.  It's Friday night all of a sudden and I am done with classes yet feel like I have more work to do than ever before.  Screw finals, seriously.  There is no way I am going to remember cumulative material from four classes.  I can't even recall everything from one class.  I believe that if a student feels sufficient with the grade they acquired at the end of the semester, pre-final, then they should be allowed to not take the final.  This should be mandatory.  If I was a teacher, I would do that.  How much more motivation would a student have to do better all year just to save themselves the misery of a week long studying sesh and a crap ton of stress?  So much more.
 I say that now but I doubt I would take advantage of it.  Why do I sound so pathetic and lazy when I write about my life!?  I'm the same way with extra hours working at the library.  We get emails about "open hours" that we can pick up if another student calls off and I'm always like "Sign me up!" to my supervisor and then that hour comes and I'm like what the hell was I thinking.  For example, a few days ago I signed up to work from midnight-2am for three nights next week because we're open late for finals and we get time and a half for working that late.  Um, I already called off one of those nights.  Realistically I was way off.  I get into bed at like, on average, 11pm on weeknights.  Why I thought I'd want to not even start my shift until after my bedtime I have zero idea.  Furthermore, Thursday nights I already work 8-10pm and then I'm going to have 2 hours off and come back and work at midnight?  And have a final the next morning?  I need a personal assistant.  One that refuses compensation for his/her work.  A volunteer personal assistant.

I'm nervous I'm not going to get what I need to get done this weekend done.
That was the worst constructed sentence I've ever created.  Moving on, I had to come home this weekend (surprise) because I have a job interview tomorrow morning (don't send flowers if I get it, it's only for holiday seasonal work)  I'm not saying where because with my luck my potential future employer will Google me and I will get fired or not hired for saying the name.  Paranoia.  So yeah I'm home and have an 8 page paper to write and my hardest final to study for on Monday.  Every time I bring school work home it never leaves my car.  Let's hope the last week of the semester things will change.

Connor has a show right now and I didn't want to go because I wanted to work on my paper, so I went to his house by myself while everyone is at the show.  He said the door would be locked, but Bry's window would be open so I could just go through there.  "You'll just have to push really hard upwards."  Ok...So I get there and yeah I walk to the side of the house and I kid you not the window is like 8 feet off the ground. I just kind of stared at it and contemplated how he even imagined I'd get in there.  Either he thinks I have mad ups (I don't) and could somehow push the window up and jump through it at the same time or he wildly overestimated my height in his mind.  Thank God no one locked the back door.

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A+ for Eavesdropping

Ok so I actually had a very cool assignment to do for my Social Research Methods class today.  Technically it was due Tuesday but he's a pretty lenient professor overall so he said as long as it's in before January it'd be cool.  The assignment was to go to a public place, sit there for an hour, and observe all the people around you and record their interactions.  If you're a people watcher it's the class for you.  I'm extremely nosy so it finally felt like a project I'd invest myself in.  I went to a Starbucks with Genna and grabbed a table towards the back, but not too far in the back.  She was studying o-chem from a notebook and I had my laptop in front of me, hiding the fact that I was secretly taking notes on everyone that came in.  

HOW CREEPY DOES THAT SOUND? It must sound creepy because it is creepy. Honestly, it almost sounds illegal, but I didn't make these people talk close enough to me so I can hear them, they could have muffled their voice if they wanted.  I didn't think I would have as much to write about as I ended up doing either.  I typed non stop for an hour, only taking like 3 one minute breaks because I thought I was going insane due to over stimulation in my brain.  

I had to set up my notes in a table including a column with the time, a column with the action of the person, and then a column with my impressions on it.  Half way through I realized I started writing like I was blogging instead of a research assignment.  It was definitely way too snarky to be legitimate research, but it was fun and my professor is probably so laid back that he shouldn't be teaching.  I wasn't worried.

Here is an excerpt of my assignment.  I'm aiming for an A, but anything over a B- will suffice.

TIME                  ACTION                                                MY IMPRESSION

03:13:00 PM	An employee is wiping down the bar table and the chairs.	I wonder if she's a newer employee because she seems pleased with herself for completing this task.
03:15:00 PM	A man around 25 walked in and was ordering at the counter, while an employee at the other end of the store yelled “hello” to him. They tried having a conversation from their separate locations but the girl couldn't understand what he was saying and did that fake laugh. Hopefully what he said wasn't serious or somber.	Almost seemed like one of those awkward encounters where you pretend like you care about what the other person has to say. She definitely didn't. Although, she did initiate the conversation which means she wanted him to know she was here...maybe she has a little crush?
03:19:00 PM	A girl, probably in high school is leaning against the bar area eating a pastry type item, looking around at her surroundings.	I think she's trying to look mature and classy while eating her over priced croissant but she's putting too much in her mouth at once and just looking like a slob.
03:20:00 PM	A lady and her three kids, all under 10 years old, came in. The kids sat down looking impatient while the lady is ordering.	THIS IS WHY THEY MADE DRIVE THROUGH STARBUCKS SO YOUR KIDS WOULDN'T HAVE TO ENDURE THIS
03:24:00 PM	A girl is leaning against the ordering counter. She's taking forever to order.	I'm wondering if she knows the cashier because they're small talking more than an average customer.
03:26:00 PM	Why does she keep leaning onto the ordering counter?	This seems so dirty because so many people use that ordering counter.
03:27:00 PM	An older couple came in, they look hip for their age. The leaning counter girl finally moved to the bar side of Starbucks. She's eating this cheesy pastry.	Why do people start eating their food while waiting for their drink? Have we no patience when it comes to food anymore
03:29:00 PM	A short middle aged man comes in and quickly orders. Ordered just a pastry but something looked wrong with it because he gave it back and waited for a different one.	He seemed friendly to the cashier even when he returned the original pastry. We need more patient and friendly people like that to come to Starbucks I feel.
03:32:00 PM	A blonde woman came in and started talking to the older hip couple, they're now ordering.	Perhaps she's their daughter, she kind of looks like the old woman. It also looks like the couple is paying for the woman which I hope my parents will still do when they're old.
03:34:00 PM	The three of them came and sat really close to me, they are talking kind of jokingly. The old man is massaging her back.	I'm really hoping it's her father at this point.
03:35:00 PM	They're discussing a gift from Pier 1 Imports. It's a back roller thing. The woman just said “mom”. The fact they are parents to her is now confirmed.	They seem like a close knit family since they're talking to the woman about work and her friends. It's refreshing.

This is how much my mom hates my blog. A text I received from her at 10:50am today... "Uncle tim told joz (my aunt Josie) to read ur blog now she wants to read it i said NO! ugh"

Thanks for being my #1 fan, madre.  Love you forever.
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"Are You Sick?" "No." *cough*sniff*spits*

I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving break and is ready to screw up a whole semester worth of work and time because we have no energy left for the last 2 weeks of classes and and 1 week of finals. Or is that just me?  Thank God I don't have many assignments left because I can tell you right now they would not be my best work.  I brought home a book I was supposed to read over break and I didn't even open it.  The other book I was supposed to read I left at school.  Did I leave it subconsciously? Probably.  These last few weeks aren't off to a fabulous start, but the repercussions of that won't be shown until my final grades are released which is so far away that it makes it less important.  Is that not how it works?
 I should really start focusing on my finals since a few of them will be challenging and preparing now would pay off.  But, I'm not going to start focusing on my finals.  That's why we have evenings before finals.
 I'm already anticipating Christmas break which is sad because we have a few weeks; December 14th cannot come soon enough.  I want to look for a job that I can have over break because I know I'm going to get very bored very quickly when I realize my family and friends at home can't be excited for that long about my arrival and long term stay (a month) in Erie.  Seriously I think it wears off after a couple hours.  When I came home for Thanksgiving, Mack came home from school that day and went to a friend's house.  Instantly.  That sums up, mainly everyone.
 
I'm also sick which may be a result from not sleeping much lately, but I slept like a lazy cat last night and woke up feeling the sickest I've been yet.  CUZ THAT MAKES SENSE? ISN'T SLEEP SUPPOSED TO BE VITAL TO REGAIN MAXIMUM STRENGTH? My throat was throbbing  every time I woke up in the night and the Chloraseptic spray was in the linen closet in the hall.  Far, far away.  As a result by morning it felt awful and I've been clearing my throat and holding/spitting nasty phlegm, depending on my situation and whether spitting is even an option.  I started feeling sick on Friday/Saturday but I guess I just ignored that getting-sick feeling and pretended I had the post-Thanksgiving blues.  Until Connor questioned me of being sick because he realizes instantly if he is under the weather I guess.   When I timidly said no with big doe-eyes and a shrinking stature he basically accused me instead of questioned me.  I hope he overcomes his illness quicker with me back at school and spitting up phlegm by myself because The Romantic Era's new cd release show is Saturday and if it's my fault his throat is scratchy than I don't think I could live with myself.

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Give That Back. It's Not Candy.

Sometimes I am swamped with so much reading to do for class that I think I would rather have busy work as assignments.  Busy work I can complete.  There is a definite end to worksheets.  Reading I will never finish.  There is always more reading for any class I can do.  I will never be caught up.  Even if I do catch up, I could always read ahead so I have less to do the following week.  I never get this opportunity of course because I'm always behind.  Even when I try to complete readings I can't get through a whole chapter without reading 7 consecutive pages and not knowing what happened for at least 2 of those pages.  Thus, I have to go back and re-read or accept the fact that the plot is going to become very much filled with holes later on.  It's a never ending cycle of torture, which is dramatic because it's not like what I have to read about is terrible it's just not readings I get to choose.  And the second I'm forced to read something I didn't pick it becomes instantly that more dreadful.  I would list all the readings I have to do but no one wants to read that list, especially me.  It would only highlight all the work I won't complete this weekend.

Instead, I will start off my weekend hanging out with my two little friends.  They are 4 and 2.  I call them my friends because I can say I honestly enjoy spending time with them.  These feelings may be partially influenced because I get paid very well to do it, I have access to a very beautiful kitchen with a wide variety of healthy food choices and this bangin' homemade trail mix, and it never fails that I get to watch a legit good Disney movie.  No, that definitely fails sometimes.  For a while they were on this kick with watching Hop consecutively, which is that computer graphic/reality movie about the Easter bunny named E.B. with the voice of Russell Brand and I had to watch it 5 times the same night, but that was only a phase.  Because it was Russell Brand I watched the movie pretending the bunny was on the side practically a male prostitute who doesn't get paid for his work.  It was a little more entertaining in my mind.

Here's your real rabbit, kids.

The movie was mildly decent the first time, and got progressively more awful as the night went on.  Last time we watched Toy Story 2 which was AWESOME.  Of course, I would still love these children and care for them even if they wanted to watch Hop tonight, I would just probably hide the DVD because if it's out of sight it's out of their mind.  I'm kidding.  I will do anything for these kids mainly because they think I'm funny.  And I can tell they think I'm smart because I know how to read and I also pulled the "Oh when you're older like me you'll know what that's for" (this occurred when the girl pulled a tampon out of my bag and questioned whether it was candy under the wrapper).  No, not candy and please give that back before mom comes home...

  Moral:  If you think I'm funny and smart I will do nice things for you.  See how simple that is if you want good things from me?  Start throwing compliments my way and I'll throw back kindness.  Fair trade...and my friends wonder why I'm a bitch to them.  Kidding.  Maybe?

I hung out with Leah yesterday and Genna and I were pumped that another person got to see our awesome apartment.  Hopefully she will come back since she saw how accommodating our place is.  We accept visitors and sleepovers.  This is limited to if we know you or not, and if we feel safe and clean with you sleeping on our couch.  Bring gifts and maybe you can share one of our beds.  You don't have to be like, super clean though, because showering to us, is a chore, and no one is perfect when it comes to maintaining chores.

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Rashida! What a Pleasant Surprise

What the hell.  I think college professors have this backwards.  I just spent three hours on a take home test.  This is the second take home exam for the class and the first test took just as long.  I learned more from doing these exams than I have all semester long and I actually had to learn it myself by reading, comprehending and applying it to these never ending multiple choice possibilities that differ by one word each.  It's ironic because this class is the biggest "in-class" blowoff.  People skip class with no immediate or recognizable repercussion, and even when we're in class some students are doing schoolwork for other classes.  I'm guilty of this.  I often bring reading material I need to do from my other classes because simply half the time what the professor is lecturing on isn't even relevant to the material.  He goes off on tangents and tries to relate to us by talking about sex and how horny we probably are.  Um, this is a research methods class.  Not exactly the most orgasmic subject.  Regardless, my final grade will still be good because I worked my ass off on these take home exams.  The real question is, why don't all my teachers do this?!  I'm much more likely to read the material if I have it in front of me when taking my exam.  If I'm told to study for the in class exam, I find it a lot harder to self-discipline myself into reading.  If teachers claim students will skip classes if they allow take home exams than make your lectures worthwhile and noteworthy.  Plus, I was never taught how to study.

Thank God I'm a decent writer and most soc classes have more paper requirements than exams because I would be failing out, hard core.  Example: the bio class I'm required to take this semester only has exams, one being this morning.  Not only did I fail to dedicate a proper amount of time studying for it last night, I also forgot my calculator.  I honestly did try preparing last night but I was too distracted by the election.  Lies.  I started watching season 3 of The Office.  Which makes less sense than if I was being distracted by the election because I just finished watching season 6 of The Office.  I'm skipping around quite a bit and it's making the characters persona's all jumbled.  AND I DIDN'T KNOW RASHIDA JONES WAS IN THAT SHOW.  However, it's slightly easier than skipping around seasons like I tried doing with LOST the second time through.

I'm counting down the days for Thanksgiving break, as I'm sure most students are.  It's funny though because my classes were cancelled tomorrow and Friday.  I thought I was getting a little pre-Thanksgiving vacation as of last weekend, but as the week went on I slowly realized not having class isn't changing much of my work load.  I still have to work tomorrow night, baby sit all night Friday, write a paper, and seriously begin reading two long books for classes.  Plus, a teacher who is going out of town for over a week whom I have for two classes with on MWF's is actually making us go to class on Friday just to watch a movie.  This is college, woman.  If you're not there, we shouldn't be expected to be there either.  I love ranting to a computer screen because it can't tell me to stop whining.

The only thing keeping me motivated right now is the fact that is my last fall semester as a college student.  Unless I fail.  Choose to dropout.  Or contract an illness that postpones my graduation for another year.  Just bein' real.

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P.s. I get to see Leah tomorrow! *excitement*

So I Remembered About Genitalia

One of the benefits of a small university is that teachers make an effort to get to know you, at least the good ones who care about you as in individual.  Which unfortunately isn't that many of them.  I do have one professor and this is the fourth class I've had with her, so she was sort of forced to know me by name and face.  This isn't Rate My Prof so I'm not going to get into whether I enjoy her particular teaching tactics or not (they don't overjoy me) but I do like the information in the classes she teaches.  Her main expertise is anthropology, and since we don't have that as a distinct individual major *SIGH* it's just overlapped in the sociology department.  I would love to be an anthropologist and at my school being a sociology and public health student is the next best thing.  That's what I tell myself and don'tyoudarecrushmydreams.

So this teacher of mine finally caught a glimpse into the way my mind really works and what I remember based on my last exam she graded.  I didn't think much of how I answered one of the questions but her remarks made me giggle.  The class is Medicine and Culture and I had to define a 'culture-bound syndrome' and give an example from one of our text book readings.  Spoiler:  I don't always read for class.  A few days before a test I thoroughly skim the pages for bolded words or important looking theories and concepts and try to grasp what the professor will think is vital for an exam question.  I don't know how this happened but I ended up reading one of those side bar boxes with the darker background that most students always ignore.  Like, the case-study or just a long example of a concept.  Whatever, if you've ever seen a text book you know what I'm talking about.  The shaded background a different font basically screams "I'm less important, feel free to skip".  Anyways I can't believe it either but I read one and somehow remembered it for the exam, at a time of complete necessity.  So this was my answer for culture-bound syndrome:

"A culture bound syndrome is a perceived sickness related and pertaining to a specific cultural group.  An example is Koro which occurs amongst groups in Southeast Asia.  Men believe or have a fear that their penis will retract inside of them.  This is significant because it's an example of a health issue limited to a specific population that is directly inhibiting their bodily functions."

Legit.   And I was awarded full credit.  I don't think many of my peers used that example.  She left a note in the margin that said,
"interesting what some students take away from class..."

I also learned in epi class that an average hamburger has pieces from about 400 different cows.  And botox injections are basically from Botulism which is a common toxin in food borne illnesses and when injected into your body paralyzes your muscles aka. no wrinkles.  Do what you will in life with that information.

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I Love You, So Here's MRSA

A lot has happened in regards to health since the last time I blogged.  Don't panic, we'll all be ok.  Connor apparently got sore on his upper thigh, very similar to what I had over summer: an immense spider bite that got infected.  When he told me this I was actually kind of pumped (not in a mean way, it's not like he was in a lot of pain) because I was like, "OMG MAYBE WE'LL HAVE MATCHING SCARS SOUL MATES FOR LIFEEEE".  He went to the doctor, got antibiotics and got it tested to make sure it isn't anything serious.  Ummm.  A week and a half later, kind of serious.  Connor had MRSA.  Cool.  And of course it happened on the same weekend he was coming to visit me.  I have to disinfect my apartment in totality now.  Nah, it wasn't that bad and he was cautious with keeping everything covered, plus he's on really strong antibiotics.  I'm not worried.  I shouldn't worry.

My mom called me this morning and was telling me a story about our neighbors, and the daughter of the family had what they believed to be a spider bite that got infected like mine over summer...They were calling my mom to compare the daughter's issues with mine.  These neighbors don't even live on our street.  They live a few blocks over.  We're not that close them at all.  I'm still very confused on why they know about the personal health issues of my life.  Thanks, mom.  So they took the girl to the doctor, it was MRSA.  She had the same symptoms with the infection that I had; swelling, it was hard to the touch, red, pussy.  Ew.  This doctor said it was definitely not an infected spider bite because if it was the girl would have been lethargic, perhaps vomiting, and diarrhea. When I had my "spider bite" I simply went to Urgacare and got some pills to make it go away.  No tests were taken.  No further follow up questions.  They didn't even ask me if I was shittin' my pants.  Sidenote: my bowels were fine during that period.  Thus, my mom thinks it's a good chance that I had MRSA now too and we just didn't really know.  Typically one needs pretty strong antibiotics to fight off this infection but who knows.  I must have a super human like immune system to defeat it.

I did not believe Connor when he initially proposed the idea of him having MRSA last week, I accused him of going overboard with his hypochondria.  I already carried this guilt on my shoulder this weekend, but now I am clearly forced to carry the guilt of POSSIBLY BEING THE ONE THAT INFECTED HIM WITH THIS SHIT.  This is all hypothetical, but also quite logical in my head.  It's not like I let just anyone grind up against my upper thigh, which is where my possible infection was located.

This situation is all very ironic since my life seems to currently be a big case of finding the cause and determinants of an infection.  I have a huge test in epidemiology tomorrow which I have been studying for but do not feel prepared at all.  Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and determinants of a health related state or behavior in a specified population...  Why does the population that I'm dealing with have to be present in places like my bedroom.  And seriously, how often is that said when not referring to like, an STD.  *so thankful*

Best Text I Received Today:  From Genna at 1:07 pm : "I'm at a farm." 

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