Current Thoughts on School

*In truth, I would say that my college lectures taught me a lot, but practically nothing of value has been added to my knowledge during my two years of grad school.

I don't really want anyone to get hit by a bus, but still, I understand the sentiment right now.

If only it was really that simple.

42 days and counting.

Dead Rats

Yesterday I was covering the lab while some undergrads were labeling. It was April 1st so some interesting things happened. We have been rather low on the labeling fluid and the one guy went to check the cupboard for some more. I knew there wasn't any left, but he pulled one out. He couldn't open it so I tried and of course I couldn't either. There was something weird about it and after doing my trick to attempt to open it and failing, he told me it was just water. Here he had taken an empty bottle, filled it with water and glued it shut. This explained the gunk in the bottom as he had used an empty white bottle and switched it to the clear, which we use the most. I guess they planned it on Monday when I'm not in the lab. I think he spent a lot of time planning for April Fool's Day because it sounds like he got all of his friends.
The interesting joke of the day was when one of the girls was labeling a bag of faunal bones. There was a large number of rat bones and she started laying them out in anatomical order on this brown paper. There were actually parts of most of the skeleton including the skull, limbs, and vertebrae. She took a picture of it with her phone so she could show some friends. I made the comment that she should tell them she found it in the back of a cupboard in her apartment. She ended up doing this and sending it to her mom who called back just before they left. She actually believed her. She ended the conversation by saying that she had to go because the exterminator was there. It will be interesting to see how far she took it when I see her next week. I think this was one joke that was actually interesting and a little less common than most that I see.

Going Back

Europe has been on my mind a lot lately and I'm very excited to be honeymooning on the Mediterranean. In honor of this, here is a picture of one of my favorite places from my semester in France: Antibes. I am going to try and take Kyle here on one of our excursions though the other options are all great places too. 193 days til the wedding, which means 195 days until we're in Rome. :)

Worst Driver Ever

So I went to PA again this past weekend as I had an appointment in Lancaster this morning. I spent Friday-Sunday at Kyle's and went to Mom's Sunday afternoon as getting into Lancaster city during morning rush hour is much more easily done by way of the Southern End rather than route 30 out of Chester County. Anyway, when I left Kyle's, I went through some back streets in town to get to rt. 30 as my normal route was off limits due to a bridge closing. I approached a red light behind another driver and stopped. The opposite side was empty, but two cars were approaching. Both sides have a straight/right turn lane and a left turn lane. The first vehicle approaching was turning right and did so once it reached the intersection and saw that no one was coming. The second vehicle was turning left and pulled into the left turn lane. The cross road was a major route and car turning left proceeded to TURN LEFT on the RED light! I have never seen anyone do such a thing. It was not a stop sign and it was not the dead of night. It was Sunday afternoon in a fairly busy area. What a moron. I told Kyle about it and had to say that even when I am sitting in Lancaster County at 2 am and there is no traffic and you know there aren't any cops, I can't make myself run a red light. For some reason I always hit red lights on the occasion that I am out and about in the Southern End late at night because I somehow always approach the light from the non-popular way, which means I have to wait until my presence trips the light.
Anyway, I then proceeded to make two U-turns trying to get on 30 at a spot I had never seen as I for some reason thought I needed 30 East despite my knowing that I didn't want to be on the side of the highway that the 30 East on ramp would put me. It then hit me that to get to Lancaster County from Chester County, you need to go on 30 West. For some reason in my mind, I always go east to get to my mom's. This is probably because I went to school in the mountains of Virginia so I went east to get home and west to get to school. Anyway, I felt like an idiot, but not as much of one as the moron who turned left at a red light.

Web question

So I know nothing about html or any other codes that are behind everything I do and see on my computer. What I want to know is whether it takes much time to make one tiny distinction in code. I assume that once someone is good enough to create an entire site, making one minor edit wouldn't be a big deal, but I think I'm wrong. My complaint is over all the sites where the amount of something changes and it involves a label. This includes blogger where one has comments. That first comment is all by itself, but for some reason blogger shows "1 Comments" and it annoys me, a lot. For facebook users, you have probably seen this in a lot of the apps and throughout the site. I noticed it a long time ago, but excused it because all the apps are created by independent people who may not have the skills to do anything about it. Blogger seems more reputable, which means that it should be able to create code that removes the s when the number is 1 and adds it for all other numbers. I don't think this is that difficult, but maybe I'm wrong.

Grad School Senioritis

For some reason, I can never get work done for class until there is less than 12 hours until the deadline for completion. I tell myself not to procrastinate, but somehow a game of freecell or mahjong pops up on my screen. Either that or I have a sudden urge to catch up on some blogs, my favorite tv shows, or the news. The weather needs checked despite the fact that I won't leave my apartment for quite some time and all three of my emails need checked even though I checked them twenty minutes earlier. Then of course, there is always facebook. Maybe some new pictures were posted or my sister played a turn in our lexulous game. It might be a Saturday afternoon and she doesn't have internet on the weekends, but I still have a need to check. She did recently get internet where she lives so now that is a legitimate excuse. Then I have to check AIM, maybe someone has signed on that I need to talk to, though it's always the same people online. Of course, I can always call my mom or my fiance even though there is nothing new in my life to talk about. There's just so much to do in my life that there isn't time for schoolwork.
I never had senioritis in high school when things didn't matter as I was set and heading to W&L as of December, but college and grad school have had some very serious cases. College senioritis was horrible as I was trying to finish my honors thesis and now I have so many papers and my internship project to wrap up that senioritis is not helping me at all. Thankfully, in 60 days I will be graduating and I will never have another reading assignment in my life. All my reading will be for pleasure again (though it basically is now). I love public libraries, but again with the distractions. Who knew they were so bad for your education.

Snow Day!

What am I doing up at 6:30 am? Obviously I had to check to see whether classes are canceled. It's been snowing here in Maryland since last night and finally the ground is white. Classes all over have been canceled, which is great, for people who have class today. I don't have classes on Mondays. Or Wednesdays or Fridays. It's a pretty nice semester, except for snow days that don't cancel my classes. I kind of wish the snow had come in today and canceled tomorrow's classes because I haven't finished the reading for either of mine. At least I have the snow day to finish right? Well, I had it anyway.
So what am I doing up at 6:30 am if the snow day doesn't matter? It isn't a fun reason. I haven't really been to sleep yet because I have an awful headache so I finally got up and took some ibuprofen. Now maybe I can go to sleep and enjoy the snow day from bed, while finishing my reading.