Fark.

Today was decent until about 6pm. Went to bed at 1, woke up at 4 for no reason, went back to sleep. Woke up again at 6:15 by my alarm clock, went back to sleep and woke up (properly) at 6:45. Oops. I had to be at the gym at 7:30 today. That's...half an hour to do everything necessary, plus eat breakfast, with the end result that breakfast consisted of a container of coffee-flavored yogurt and a cup of hot chocolate. Yummy. Not to worry, since I can't eat anything before fencing. I have to snack.

I walked to the gym with one of the foil guys that lives in the building next to mine, and one of the sabre guys who lives at the bottom of the hill. Of course, no one else was there. Just a note: When you say "get there at 7:30," that means YOU need to be there at 7:30. And then we spent more time waiting around for the guy with the key to the equipment room to get there. (I love fencing. It's so disorganized sometimes.) And then more time waiting for the rest of the drivers to get there.
Unlike October's tournament, this one was three schools (us and two others) and local--20 minutes away from campus. We were still there from 9:30 to 3:30. We had some equipment issues (dead body cords, and for some reason all but one of our sabres is two-prong, and some flying masks) at the beginning when we tested our gear (hurrah for crappy club stuff!) but we got it ironed out in the end. We fenced the "easy" school first.Their women's sabre squad had two people on it; ours had three, so we only needed to win two bouts. (For every person missing from a squad, they forfeit the bouts the missing person would have fenced.) The sad thing is, they didn't really seem to know what they were doing, and I was the only reason we beat them, not trying to brag or anything. My teammates...one of them only started this year, and the other started last spring. We can chalk one up to inexperience, and the other...she has some good instincts, but she gets very nervous when fencing and it all goes out the window. So guess who won those two bouts? And unfortunately, they were the only ones I won all day.
The host school is a division II school with a varsity fencing team. We are...division III with a club team. The men had a much harder time than we did (the men's foil event was a bloodbath), but we still lost all our bouts (at least, sabre did). A lot of it was "where the *%&! was my brain in all this?!" Lots of touches that I missed, and lots that I should have known how to deal with. J was unusually sympathetic to me today--he usually isn't. He doesn't try to be nasty or uncaring, but he takes his fencing very seriously and so is usually too wrapped up in his game or what's going on on the strip at the moment (for some reason, only the men's events get his attention...) to be particularly sympathetic. He wasn't fencing today because he sprained his ankle the week before, so I guess he was more into providing coaching, equipment and support today. I was beating myself up about my performance on the strip, and he came over, patted my shoulder and said "Hey, don't worry about it. We're all in the same boat, and yeah, there are some things you've got to work on, but it's getting better. That was the most aggressive I've ever seen you. That's good. Keep it up and come to practice." Last bit is a tiny bit awkward since I've been missing practices due to...me not sleeping and exams. (Not that J can talk on the first front, because he doesn't sleep either.)
Anyhow, we got back to campus at 4:15ish, I had a sort of late lunch/snack thing. Tea-- only without the tea--is the best description of it. Then I hiked up the Stairs of Doom so I could take a nap...which was interrupted by the fire alarm going off. Again. Why are the people in my building idiots? At least this time they called security and told them to tell the fire department not to show up. And then I got dinner. Somewhere between my room and the dining hall, I lost my brand-new, just-bound-off Foliage. It had been in my pocket until I realized this, so I guess it's in the dining hall, from where I either fished my ID card or gloves out of my pocket. But it makes me sad, since I'd only worn it for a little while and I hadn't even gotten to take a picture of it. I'll be checking the dining hall tomorrow, as well as the route down there (for a third or fouth time). If it's not there, it may be in someone's car (I hope that's the case.) And if still nothing...I guess I'll be casting on...again.

Since someone asked...

Midterms went. How they went varies by subject. I got B's on my genetics and biology midterms, dunno on calc (she doesn't give them back and I have yet to look my grade up online) and chem...the less said about it the better.

And I have another set coming up. Why are they all at the same time? I have a calc exam on Tuesday, a chem exam on Thursday, and both bio subject exams are the following Monday. I don't think I can handle that. *Hides under her desk*

In Blogstalking...I'm sorry I didn't get the stuff up. I wound up having less time than I thought I would. I'll try to get you "A day in the life" either tomorrow or Thursday. (I'll have a reason to leave my room other than the grocery store tomorrow, and Thursday is my Day Off.) And I can almost certainly get you the statues tomorrow. I have the perfect one in mind. :D

In the meantime, look at some pictures of knitting!


The Gryffindor bookscarf. It should be a quick knit, but no. It's been languishing on my "bookshelf" for the last couple of months. And this is part of the reason why--My first actual sock-weight sock! Toe-up sock, knit in Tofutsies (the color name/number escapes me for the moment.) The top of the foot (and eventually, the leg!) is in Irish Moss stitch, with four-stitch cables at the edges.
This is also part of the reason why. The sleeve for Mariah. The same sleeve from the last picture. And yes, I know that there's that huge gap right there, where I think I knitted an extra row or two between the repeats of the cable charts. I'm not going to frog. I'll just knit the other sleeve the same way and call it a "design element." So there.

What's this? Something else new? Yep! Lace! Pattern is Foliage from the Fall 2007 issue of Knitty (sorry, to lazy to link at the moment), in Patons' SWS (color: Natural Plum). This is an enjoyable knit--quick, yet interesting enough to keep my attention. Knit, as are many things, on 5 of my trusty 20 (it must be somewhere around that...) size 6 DPNs. My alarm clock is graciously modeling this partly finished hat for me. I do wish I could have gotten a better picture of the stitch marker. It's one of my favorites. (It's one I made myself out of a couple of jump rings and a charm thing I found lying around my house.) Because it's hard to tell from the picture, it's a silver elephant on top of that purple glass ball.
Am I the only one who must coordinate their projects and stitch markers?

popping in briefly

If you Blogstalkers have been wondering where I've been for the past week or so...I've been hit by midterms this week. And for some reason, all but one have been this week. (WHY do the science and math departments do this? Are they trying to kill us?) I have an organic chem midterm tomorrow at 11:15...and I can't sleep because I'm a teensy bit freaked out about it. But I did get my lab report done (due tomorrow)!
I'm done with most things tomorrow after the lab, so I have some time to update/take pictures/catch up on blogstalker business. And then...fall break! (More time! I'm going home, but I'm probably going to do homework.)

AAAAH!

Okay, I am now thoroughly convinced that college is trying to either kill me or drive me insane, whichever comes first. My course load is not exactly taxing, it's just that my schedule sucks:

Calc II: MWF, 8:30-9:20; Tu 11:35-12:25
Bio 215: MWF 9:30-10:20, Th. 1:15-4:15
Fencing: MW 10:30-11:20
O-chem: MWF 11:30-12:20
Genetics: MW 12:30-1:45
Chem lab: M 2:00-5:00

On top of this, I have fencing practice (for the club) on Mondays and Wednesdays at 6:30, and Fridays at 3.
The work isn't hard (yet), but the volume of reading is huge. I have another chapter to read for bio, and 2.5 chapters of genetics to read. For Monday. As well as my o-chem homework to rewrite so it's actually legible (resonance structures are evil!), calc homework, and the video to watch for lab. For Monday. What HAVE I been doing all weekend?

I'm HOOOOME!

Actually, I've been home for nearly a week. Then I get to go back to Cleveland in June, so I can take the first semester of physics--in five weeks. I'm nuts.
I made my decision about majors: I'm doing a BS in biology and a BA in chemistry, with possibly an add-on major in Environmental Studies. Yes, I AM nuts. Well, it's not quite so bad: I have an extra semester of physical chem plus lab, a semester of quant. analysis, and another semester of o-chem lab. In addition, I have whatever electives I need to take. But since I'm doing a BA and a BS, I get out of 6 credit hours for the BA. Now, the question is, do I want ACS certification? If I do, I need to take a semester of biochem, a semester of inorganic chem, and five hours of research. Given my combination, the biochem might be a good idea. The research...we'll see if I can wrangle something that fulfills that and my research requirement for bio.

I actually scraped an A in chem this semester!!! When I went to pick up my final, my professor handed it back to me and said "Congratulations! Well done!" I looked at it, and discovered I got EXACTLY the number of points I needed for an A. Ended up with an A in anthropology, and a B in my seminar and chem lab. Not surprised. Next semester, I'm taking:

1. Introduction to Organic Chemistry I
2. Cells and Proteins
3. Shakespeare: Histories and Tragedies
4. Organic Chemistry Lab
5. Calculus II
6. Fencing.

I'm thinking of signing up for the orchestra for non-music majors, but I'm not 100% sure of it yet.

I do actually knit, in case we'd forgotten. I'll get some pictures of the WIPs up tomorrow. (And maybe an FO or two...hmm....)

Wow.

Well, the last chem test (not the last one I mentioned x_x) went really well. I left the room feeling pretty good about it, but I didn't expect a 99% on it! And the single point I lost was something stupid--I forgot to write the percent dissociation for HCl. That was brilliant. I have another one on Friday. Same kind of thing, but you have to do it three or four times for each problem. Hopefully my prof will be nice and not put four of the same kind of problem. I might die of boredom otherwise.

And now, some more interesting news. (Or not.) I seem to be at the center of some intra-familiar and inter-disciplinary conflict. When I filled out my college applications, I wrote "biology" as my intended major. And then I looked at the course requirements for the BS in bio (two semesters of general chemistry, two semesters of organic chemistry and a semester of physical chemistry). Turns out that's essentially a minor in chemistry (two semesters of gen chem plus lab and two semesters of o. chem plus lab) So I decided I was going to go for a BS in biology, a BA in environmental studies and a minor in chemistry. Until I took a bio class this semester. I was in it for a grand total of two weeks, because a) the university decided they were going to grant me credit for my AP grade after all, and b)I hated it. As much as I loved bio in high school, I can't seem to muster the same passion for it a year later, if that. Trouble is, that goes for basically anything. I don't have a strong enough interest in any of the humanities to do any more than dabble. I also don't know if I have a strong interest in any of the sciences to major in any of them. And this is where the parental units come in. Mum wants me to give bio another shot. She's really trying to push me away from the physical sciences. My dad, on the other hand, doesn't seem to care so much, though he was pushing me in the chemistry/biochemistry direction. It's sort of what I want to do, but I don't really know. And that means I have to work out what that means for the math requirements. I need to talk to someone, but I have no idea who. My adviser is the head of the English department, which is not good if I want to talk to HIM about something, science major that I (still) am, but he does know who I should go talk to. The other person who I think I could talk to is my chemistry professor, but he's probably sick of me, not to mention the fact that he has a class of 250 or so students to deal with as well. Now I just have to buck up enough courage to talk to SOMEONE...

Knitted stuff...and the rest of life.

Or, more accurately, stuff in the process of being knitted. On the needles, I have:

-Irish Hiking Scarf in Alpaca Yarn Company's Landscapes (will be finished when I run out of yarn)
-Toe-up socks in Patons SWS (one done, partly frogged; one started)
-Hoodie in Lion Brand Homespun
-Gryffindor scarf in Caron Perfect Match and Red Heart Supersaver
-Striped stockinette scarf in Lion Brand Homespun

My ongoing project is a garter stitch patchwork scrap blanket. I have one finished square at home, and one on the needles here.

And, on top of that, I have two pairs of Fetching to do for Christmas presents, and the commission Fun Fur version to do for a friend of a friend. Yay for a month-long winter break.

In other news, I have two more finals to go. One is a take-home for Environmental Studies, the other is for Microeconomics. For the former, the professor expects four to seven typed pages per question. If that's the case, I'd rather take an in-class exam. At least that way, they only care about content and not about how you write the essay. The latter...I'd rather not think about. I don't even know why I took that class (yes, it's a prerequisite for Environmental Economics, but I don't have to take that either. I can get away with taking History of the American Environment.) I have at least 8 chapters to read by 12:00 on Tuesday. Not counting the fact that I'm going to have to write that other final. But then I get to go HOME.