theyellowhobbit

I find myself doing more and more research, rather than actually writing the darn thing. The problem is that I'm having a very hard time deciding what angle I want to write from.

My topic, for those of you who don't know, is suicide in college students.

Unfortunately, most of the research is inconclusive. I'm wondering if I should talk about Penn's incompetence in the realm of stress reduction/providing an environment where people DON'T want to kill themselves. UMD has a class in stress reduction, where there's no homework, since homework would be stressful. I think Penn should always have free massages available, especially to seniors writing theses, and pre-meds, and grad students, and engineers...actually for everyone since everyone at this school is an overachiever, and we all get stressed out constantly.

Summer is always interesting, because I forget what it's like not to be completely stressed out all the time. And then all of a sudden my work is done. And this summer I'll have a job, but it shouldn't be too stressful.

Gah. I should write. No more articles. Just write, and work in the articles...

The classes for spring 2007 are finally up.

The only GIS course being offered is City Planning 666 (sounds ominous, doesn't it?) Here's the description:

L/L 666. Modeling Geographical Objects. (B) Tomlin.

Introduction to the use of geographic information systems (GIS) in urban and regional planning. Reviews the conceptual foundations of GIS. Students achieve proficiency in Arc View.

Even though it's a 600-level class, it has no prerequisites. And apparently Dr. Tomlin knows a lot about archaeology, or is an archaeologist, or Ben had him for GIS (and got an A+. Meanwhile, he doesn't believe in A+s. I really think I should get an A+ on my thesis, considering that I work on my thesis more than I work on all my other classes combined. I eat, sleep and breathe thesis. And besides, I numerically had an A+ in Biblical Archaeology, but only got an A. One shiny A+ on my transcript is all I need. Or maybe 2, since it would be weird for my thesis grade to go down 2nd semester.) and he's like the world's leading GIS expert. Definitely one or more of the above. So I'll be taking it.

My other class next semester will be the Monge Class of Death (quite literally- ANTH 210, Death: an Anthropological Perspective).

So I'll have class from 3-4:30 on Tuesday and Thursday, and class on Wednesday from 12-3. So I'll have 3 days of class instead of 2, but I could sleep in really late every day, or get up early and work in the museum library until it's time for class. And I get Monge! What could be cooler than that?

As soon as registration opens, I'm registering. Hopefully I won't have any trouble signing up for the City Planning course.

I have a Hellerstein paper due in about 7 hours. It's 5-7 pages long. I have an outline and I'm on page 1. I was hoping to get to sleep at some point and now that's obviously not happening, but I just can't concentrate. Maybe I'll take and upload a picture of Bingo, my stuffed snow leopard cub that Janet Monge named.

Basically an inevitable conversation happened, by my own decision, today, and although I knew what it would entail and how I would feel coming out of it [and the bad effect it would have on my papering ability] I still went ahead and had it. An afternoon was spent crying. An evening numb. A late night...papering.

We wonder why Rachel always waits until the last minute to write these things. Monday night should have been spent papering, not playing FF5. Tuesday night should ahve been spent papering, not hanging out with friends. Tuesday afternoon would have been good for papering as well. Isn't that what mashing is for?

Well there's no point in beating myself up. Either I have it or I don't, and if I don't I just say nothing and give it to Hellerstein on Tuesday, and hope she's merciful, despite needing the extension on the other paper. I guess it's just last year in repeat, except minus depression, Baruch Hashem.

I'm writing single-spaced and hoping it'll grow and I'll surprise myself. And maybe I can get it edited and give it to her later tomorrow/today.

Anyone up for some late-night editing?

Oh how I miss Shlomo and his editing skills!

Hillel is wonderful in that it offers kosher meals for all of Passover. The problem is that while they kasher the meat kitchen, we're stuck with entirely dairy food for a week and a half. The dairyness started on Friday. *Dun dun dun!!!!*

It all started out with me making biscotti, which required a trip to the Fresh Grocer. I survived. Then I did some bakingness, and got the biscotti in for the first baking, and I. said she would take them out of the oven for me.

I went and had lunch with Rabbi Mike, which was the first time I had eaten all day, save some biscotti-dough.

Then I went back and finished the biscotti. Though by then I had to pick up my prefrosh, ozaku_kangaroo from Shatte's class [by the way, did you like it?] So I. again took them out of the oven.

ozaku_kangaroo, her dad, and I walked to the parking garage so he could get his car, drop us off, and go to the hotel. We also took a detour because I had left some stuff at Becky's place, including my very pretty outfit I intended to wear for Shabbat.

We all got ready for Shabbat, and went off to services.

ozaku_kangaroo davened at OCP, which I showed her to. perseus_remus,masteraleph and I were all in the back of CJC [I had this little women's section I made for myself] trying to get people to have more ruach. It even worked a little.

Afterwards was dairy dinner, because JK was having a small meal that had enough room for me but not ozaku_kangaroo, and I was too lazy to make 2 meals. [or 1.5]
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I had a dream on Friday night that I woke up at 10:30 on Saturday morning, which was a problem since I was leading psukei. Apparently I hadn't heard my alarm go off at 8. IRL, it was 6:30, so I went back to sleep, and that explains why I hadn't heard the alarm [since it hadn't gone off yet!] And I did get up on time, and I even had enough time for breakfast.

My psukei d'zimrah went well, except for when I thought it was time for Nishmat and forgot about the whole shirat hayam thing... But then perseus_remus corrected me, and I was like "just kidding guys!" And then when he announced the actual turning of the page to 334, I was like "this time it's for real!" [CJC doesn't observe the whole no one talking during services thing, and they break things up to announce pages and stuff. Or maybe it's only in certain areas where this matters and I'm just not well versed]

I skipped out on Mussaf to give E.B. a back massage, because apparently I'm good at it.

After services I reunited with ozaku_kangaroo, who made it to shul in 1 piece.

Lunch went quite well, and the food was good, and there was some singing, and ML was crowned the April fool, and AA had a really amusing song.

Then a bunch of us played Chrononauts, and the JG and I had a long discussion about life.

cynara_linnaea suggested ordering Cherry Street after Shabbat. I called, and it turns out that they have a new delivery guy who doesn't know our area and therefore couldn't deliver there. How is he supposed to learn his way around if he never visits places he doesn't know?!?!?! And what the heck are they paying him for?! No Cherry Street. Panini instead. I introduced ozaku_kangaroo to the wonderful world of Goldeneye and Mariokart.
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And on Sunday, cynara_linnaea interviewed me for her folk art class. I get to be in a 30 page paper and there are crazy pictures of me holding balls of yarn. Apparently my yarn collection is massive. I think it's a good size. Just what I need. And what I find that's pretty. And every color of kippah thread so if someone requests a kippah I can make it. And fuzzy yarn. And leftover yarn from projects.

I was supposed to study in the afternoon, but found myself getting Ben and Jerry's with GM. Getting 2 scoops was not a good idea, but I never can decide on just 1 flavor. Or just 2 flavors, for that matter. I ended up getting cookie dough and dublim mudslide.

After SNL superducky1,levana_b masteraleph, Mikey and I all hung out at Starbuck's. Then Mikey and I watched more wonderfalls, and then I went to bed. Early. Yay!
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Of course, I managed to leave my Anthro book at Hillel, and thus screwed up my studying yesterday morning. I told Ben about this, and some other silly things I ended up doing, and he didn't think I was an idiot [at least not that I know of in any case]. So because of that I felt less stupid before the midterm, which I messed up anyways. Oh well, I can drop it. Whee!
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And today I was supposed to volunteer for Monge but she had forgotten to do something important and gave me the afternoon off. I gave her a biscotti. And now she wants my recipe. :) Soon I will take over the Anth department with my baking skills!!!

So last night I got my deli-roll out of 408's fridge, and it enjoyed a breif stay in 403's fridge and then was brought home. Mikey and I brought most of the costume boxes from his place, I went online, and went to bed.

This morning the deli-roll wasn't in the fridge.

All along I had left it in my bag. Ooops!

I didn't want to waste it, so I still brought it for lunch, stored it in the anthro fridge, and heated it in the microwave*, hopeing to kill whatever bacteria were around by that process. It tasted fine, but I'm slightly worried.

Also I have the general "panicky but I don't know why" feeling. Ok, I kind of know why, but it's not so rational.

Ok, back to looking up A BILLION articles for Monge.

*I triple-wrapped it in saran-wrap, so it was all kosher even if the microwave is treif.

If I were Janet Monge, where would I be?

The answer seems to be "gone in a puff of smoke." She was in her office, talking to someone, so I said I'd be "over there" [in the wing of the museum with the computer lab.] Then I left the computer lab, she was still talking. I went to the bathroom, came back, and she was gone. And she's not in casting [as far as I know], nor is she on the porch taking a cigarette break. It really does appear that she's gone. Gerianne said she'd tell her that I'm in the Museum Library. Supposedly I'm going to work on my project now. I might work on my new story, which I started writing in Hellerstein's class today.

I dropped Monge-fest.

Now I have no classes on Fridays, which means tons of time to make food or go away for shabbat. I could even leave on thursday afternoon!

Today I had a meeting with Janet Monge. Last night I had a dream about said meeting. I dreamed that she wasn't sure whether or not I could take her class, since I had to leave early for the first 2 weeks, since she'd rather give my spot to someone who didn't have to leave early. I also, for some reason, had to demonstrate that I could bike really quickly to Hillel.

Speaking of biking- I have a new talent- precision biking. "What is this?" you may ask. It involves my bike, the basket in the front of my bike, various large objects, and a coffee from Wawa. What you do is buy a coffee, put your large objects [such as an environmental studies book or a gym bag] in the basket, and then squeeze the coffee into the corner, with the large object holding it in place. Then you bike downhill to the anthropology museum. The object of precision biking is to get to the museum without spilling the coffee. A little bit on the lid is fine, but it can't go flying out. So far, out of 2 tries, I've succeeded both times.

So now the real meeting- she said she'd love to have me in her class, and it was fine if I had to leave a little early for the first few weeks. I also might be able to volunteer at the museum next semester, and she said if I was there for long periods of time, I could get access to the student lab to study in. Which might give me museum access.

Speaking of museum access, which Ariela will soon have, I could have used it today. After class I wandered about the exhibits, and I then tried to get back to the classroom part of the museum. I knew that if I crossed the deck on top of the cafe, I could get there. Unfortunately you need museum access for that. So I had to go down 2 flights of stairs and then up 2 different flights of stairs. I still haven't explored the entire museum. Maybe I can go again this shabbas [hint hint Josh and Liz]. And I won't wear injury-inducing shoes, considering I'm up to "Avidan M" in the Avidan game.

Wow. Almost 400 words, none of which are for my story.

And now back to actual work.

jtersesk said I think it sounds like a fantastic idea! I love Monge, too. Hee. I wish I had realized I didn't like my major soon enough and switched into Ling or Anthro.

Kol Hakavod!

The thing is, it probably wasn't soon enough. let's see.

After this semester if I can move around the Jewish studies classes a bit I'll have 10 out of 14 jewish studies classes done, though if I'm double majoring it would be 10 out of 12. 1 would be the senior thesis, so that would be taken senior year.

After this semester I'll have 2 anthro classes. so that leaves 12. I'll have 12 spots left of classes if I continue in this 4 classes a semester thing. So that would mean all of my classes would have to be anthro. And I'd still have 2 Jewish studies classes to fit in there, so it does mean 2 semesters of 5, plus me not getting to be part-time second semester senior year, and thus not saving 10,000$.

If I were to drop jewish studies altogether, I'd still need to take environmental studies this semester, so I could do 3 anthropology classes, and then I'd have 10 left over 3 semesters, which would actually work so that I could get my final semester of 2. The only problem there is that I feel silly dropping a major when I have 8 out of [12] classes done for it. though I could switch it to a minor which would then be finished already, and it would still look pretty.

Or I could have a joint thesis on jewish anthropology that would be counted in both majors, do a summer excavation in Israel that would count towards both majors [if I, G-dwilling, find a program] and hope that somehow that gives me enough credits to finish both.

Or hope I'm sane enough to master the art of taking 5 classes again, and then take 5 for the next 2 semesters, 2 anthro this semester and 5 next, and then I could have senior year be a mix of jewish studies and anthro, and my second semester senior year could be just the thesis, which would give me enough credits for everything, I think.

This is why I need to see Monge. And Hellerstein, though she didn't respond to me e-mail.