The Wombat's Revenge

I had my computer simulation class today, the professor for which told me two weeks ago that he expected the anthropology students in the course to find the programming assignments to be a struggle. It came as a surprise, though, that my partner for the final project, a computer science student who has before now conversed with me normally, has suddenly adopted the view that my aptitude for programming is similar to that of a sleep-deprived wombat. Before class, I was asking him about our next programming assignment, which he had kindly offered to help me with, and I explained the first of several steps I had done (making half the cells green), then paused. He apparently thought I was done explaining what I had done so far, because in the pause, he exclaimed, "GOOoooOOood!" as you would to an exceptionally slow three-year-old.

Suffice it to say that it is so on. But because my righteous indignation unfortunately exceeds my actual programming ability, my revenge is unlikely to take the form of the best program EVER! I may have to resort to gum on chairs.

We Demand to be Taken Seriously

Judging from the large number of frighteningly professional campaign signs that have suddenly appeared on campus, ASU's undergraduate student government elections are coming up soon. While it's entertaining enough that most of the president/vice president tickets are taking this so seriously that they have had real signs designed, what I really love is that one ticket, Underwood/Smith, hilariously seems to have joined the race just to take the piss. Where Sales and Zoebisch have put up a 5' by 3' plastic sign promising, "We'll raise the standards for PARKING", Underwood and Smith have put up a sign, hand-scrawled on plain white posterboard, reading, "Underwood/Smith: Underlining random WORDS!" Next to a sign promising to lower costs of attendance, they promise "Arbitrary tuition hikes! No textbook resales!" But best of all is the one I saw on my way home from the lab today: "Underwood/Smith: We demand to be taken seriously".

Fricking genius.

Open Letter to an Anonymous Asshole

Dear Person Who Threw His/Her Empty Soda Cup Into my Bike Basket While it was Parked on Campus Only 10 Feet Away From the Nearest Trashcan,

Kudos on finding a way to simultaneously spare yourself the hideous effort of having to walk an extra 10 feet and ruin my afternoon. Few bring such creativity to finding subtle ways to make the world a little worse. Congrats! You're an asshole!

Love, Amy

Choke! Choke! Choke!

Well, I ended up crashing & burning in a major way on my background statement...you see, no matter how it starts, schoolwork somehow always ends up turning into a cage-match between crippling academic performance anxiety and the looming deadline. In an historic upset, the deadline lost this round. I slogged through eight pages (or, if you count the typing, then panicking and deleting, approximately 87 pages) by last night, then totally choked. Then I called my awesome friend, who very patiently listened to me freak out for like an hour and had the revolutionary idea that I talk to my advisor about feeling overwhelmed and not having enough time to do everything. Then I IM'ed my other awesome friend, who agreed that I could sleep on her futon and get a job with her company if I ended up getting kicked out of school. But because we are both a. slobs and b. firebugs, it would probably end badly. Or quite well, if you enjoy a good blaze.

Because of all that, today I had to have a scary meeting with my advisor, who turned out to be very supportive and nice about my lack of a draft, which was excellent. I'm not sure what I'll do with my time if I actually start communicating with my advisor and stop panicking about my work for her, though. Maybe take up macrame?

Some Things You Should Probably Know About Me

I have a background statement for my PhD dissertation due in fewer than 72 hours, and have chosen to sit down and create a blog. This comes on the heels of such incredibly misguided, procrastination-based decisions as: "My MA thesis is due in less than a week -- I should probably start writing it" "I will write my PhD admission essay between sets at the Burning Brides show" and "I will convince my department to let me take my comprehensive exam a year early, then begin studying in earnest only two weeks before". Those all worked out great in the end -- I'll let you know about this one on Tuesday.