Well I hope you all had a nice Thanksgiving... I did a wee bit of studying but not nearly enough. That is a good sign though, it means I still have a life... or something like it.

Ahh, it's a man's life in the Royal Marines! Well I can't point fingers, can I-- I was in a fraternity in college, after all!

Well, praise be, my second calc test was not that hard-- or maybe it just felt that way because the topics covered were ones I actually studied! So I guess now I just wait for the grade...

Frying pan to fire, in two weeks my third chem test hits. At this point, one month away from the end of the semester, only about 1/3 of the chem grade is accounted for. This is what's called a "bottom-heavy" class - most of the grade is counted at the bottom of the semester, just when holidays start - gee, whooppee! So two kinds of students are rewarded: the late-bloomers and the persistent types. I am hoping to be of type 1. ;) In any case I can't register yet for next semester because I am non-matriculated-student-scum, and we don't get our shot at the courseware until Dec. 1. But the good news is, I am still taking classes with large enrollment margins, so I don't anticipate a problem getting a seat in my classes for next semester.

I also am in process to get a doctor to shadow, if not this semester, then next. What will happen when I actually spend a few days with a doctor? After seeing what they actualy do, will I be tempted to switch to something like pharmacology? >)

Have you never been mellow??? I mean, have you ever tried, for Chrissakes??

So I drove back from a diner to the library parking lot to start my evening calc test test review. This entails taking heaps of past tests the prof mercifully makes available and doing them to see what I can and can't figger out. [But this afternoon I felt the breath of hope. Reviewing one test I came up with some of my own sneaky tricks for doing things like finding derivatives implicitly or using the various rules associated with multiple-term derivations (OK, I know... yaaawwwnnnnn.... I am boring you... but bear with me...)]. Anyway, pulling into the BLOODY FULL library lot at my school, on comes this on WFKL: Have you never been mellow. Now, I hadn't heard this song in years, nor did I know John Farrar wrote it or that Olivia Newton-John (on whom I had mad a mad lust-driven crush when I was a "tween-ager") sang it, too. This is like so many songs from my childhood-- I recognize them but don't know who does them. Well, it was nice to hear this song as I drove around looking for a parking spot. Somehow, I found one.

I guess mellowness paid off... this time anyway...

From the truer-words-rarely-spoken deptartment and the depths of my post-collegiate memory comes this line from The Professor: "We each pay a fabulous price for our visions of paradise..."

This would be so much easier if I truly gave a rat's a$$ about things like calculus. I would really much rather be reading about icky stuff like diseases and conditions (evil grin), or better yet, doing something associated with the pursuits of the idle welathy. :) But, I do I appreciate the importance of such things as calculus but it just does nothing for me. The abstract concept stuff is fine and very engaging, but the actual messing with numbers? Dull. And worse, I am not very good at it, either!

But I shall not be deterred-- I have my second calc exam on Thursday. Charge!!!!!

Did better on the second chm test than the last one, but still under the mean. :( I went to the registrar and signed up for tutoring for both classes (for calc, hey, it can't hurt) and got one for calc, but none are available for chem, at least not now.

As for current events, all I can say is, Hitchens called it.