theyellowhobbit

I just got out of Death by Monge class, finishing off my last undergraduate semester. Kinda.

A lot of good things happened in the past 24 hours. So here's a synopsis:
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( the great mashing crisis of 2007 )
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( GIS )
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( Thesis )
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( Thesis 2 )
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I'm still going to try and keep up this pace of working for hours every night until I'm finished. And Sunday I'm probably going to GM's to have a homework party. But now I'm doing this more out of wanting to be finished than sheer desperation.

I'm graduating! I'm actually graduating!!!!

Up next: finding housing in Cambridge! And figuring out my summer craft curriculum, though my mom gave me some suggestions for that.

Summer is long and arduous when you have nothing to do. Then all of a sudden, it's like there's no time at all.

But it's only the 3rd week of break!

Well yeah, but I have a thesis, 2 theses, to write.

I went to the library on Monday before visiting Stern. Despite going to bed at 12 that night, I woke up at 11 on Tuesday. After getting out of the shower, having only 1 contact lens in, the phone rang. So I quickly popped in the other lens, and dove for it, thinking it was my mom calling for whatever random reason. Nope. It was Stevie, who I had called on Sunday night but had gotten his machine. So after telling him I'd call back after getting more clothed, I got more clothed and called him back.

Yeah, that zapped over an hour of my morning/afternoon. A good zapping, but still. His phone died, so I left a message that I'm not sure he got, and went on to do whatever I was supposed to do.

Which apparently was working on Lunar, and reading LJ and other blogs, and e-mailing. I never left the apartment.

So today was going to be productive. I went to bed at 2, after talking to platypuses on IM and watching law & order and CSI and whose line [not in that order]. But still, I woke up at 8 am.

I managed to make it out of the apartment at 10. Then I worked a bit in Van Pelt, reading a very interesting book, Why aren't Jewish Women Circumcised? Don't worry, in like the first few pages the author tells us that he is in no way suggesting that Judaism should practice female circumcision, rather, what does circumcision mean in terms of covenant, and why is there no parallel female ritual? I'm only at the beginning of the book, but it's going to talk about mikvah as the female parallel ritual, and that's why I picked it up in the first place. Since I need to read about mikvahs and purity.

But then I got a call from the front desk of Hilel- the meat had arrived and no one was around so the fridge was locked so she couldn't put it there, and could I pick it up now? Um... Ok. So I biked over, and by then she had managed to find the 2nd floor kitchen fridge as unlocked, so I didn't have to grab the meat and bring it home after all, and I can get it tomorrow. Yay!

Then I came back and went to the cafe to get coffee with GM. And RC was there, who I hadn't seen in a year. Both me and her in our natural hair colors. Quite shiny!

So I spent until 2:00 there, and since have been...umm...steadily working. Yeah, that's what I'm doing now.

And my shiny away message I made this morning:

A poem on the joys of Thesisizing:

The books in van pelt seem to be endless
while those reading them appear to be friendless
all alone in my comfy red chair
supposedly working the whole time I'm here
It would be quite smart to sign off IM
How exactly did I get into Penn?
The theses (there's 2) continue to weary
this writer of poems who is no longer cheery
So an away message is my compromise
to get me to work will take thousands of tries
so IM away, and I might just respond
or even better- write with me, and we can all bond.

Still brilliant- hah! I win! They can make me write 100 pages, but they'll never have my soul!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Yes, Chair and here don't rhyme, nor do IM and Penn. I did that knowing that. I could have found better rhymes. But I didn't. Deal with it.

+ I finally got my Spirit & Law grade
- It was a B+, putting me periolously at a 3.53
+ I still have a 3.68 in the major, and a 4.0 in the other major. So I'm still fine for honors-land, provided I figure out a thesis topic at some point this semester.
+ I also could be getting a good grade from Ruderman... I hope.

So I didn't accomplish much over break, but if I finish up the 2 applications for the digs [Bar Ilan and Hebrew U (Tel-Dor). Hebrew U is my 1st choice, since I figured out all the Jewish stuff will be ok] I'll have done something tangible to reduce my workload for the beginning of next semester.

The knitting actually did help as well, since the scarf for the day school had a deadline. Granted, the event isn't until March, but the sooner I get them done, the better. Now at least the 1st one can be in the program for the raffle. There's no way I can knit scarf #2 today. It's big, blue, and fuzzy; the usual fuzzy scarf I make. If only I could knit on Shabbat! Maybe I'll finish it Saturday night, and then my mom or dad can bring it to Mrs. Felder.

I'm so scared that this semester will be stressful. I have the 5 class thing. Maybe I will audit Monge, since I'm so divided and I really do want to take her class, but not be overworked or under-shabbated. But then again, if I audit, I'm spending hours of my time doing somethign that won't reduce a future workload at all. Kind of like pass/failing, though at least that gets me a credit. I need to stop by her office next week.


I'm also afraid that costumes will be over my head. Hopefully people will have some useful clothes in their own closets. And hopefully I can get the rest in 1 giant shopping trip. And hopefully they don't have too many costume changes. Though I'm sure Andrew Janet's character must have a billion costumes. Gah! Why did you have to pick a play with so few girl's parts, and so many guy's parts?!?!?!

That little bit of anxiety is trickling in, creeping up on me for no apparent reason. I can't do anything now besides finish the application.

Well I could start on anth readings, since they're online.

I looked at the syllabus for ANTH 170, Primate behavior, and found this:

"For the second assignment we will go to the Philadelphia Zoo on a Saturday morning sometime in March or April. The details of this assignment will be provided later."

Wonderful. So I already have to explain to the professor on the first day of class that I won't be able to go to the zoo with the class. Unless they chose a Sunday instead. I hope he will understand the Jewish thing, and won't be like "what if a non-Jew drove?" I suppose I could walk to the zoo, though that would take a long time, and go out of the eruv, and my guess is that the zoo isn't free, which makes it impossible.

Maybe I should drop both 170 and Monge for something else. I could take a class that Professor Urban is teaching. Whee! Urban! Or I could take Jokes and Insults (anth 125) which is on Tuesdays and thursdays 12-1:30. No conflicts there, and it is an 100-level class in cultural anthropology. [Penn in Touch says that it's full, but maybe I can get in anyways.] Or Bible in translation with Tigay. Or Human reproduction. I guess I'll sit in on everything this week, and decide from there.

Which will mean that week 1 of classes will be INSANE!

I forgot. I have the Ruderman midterm due Tuesday [well I didn't "forget," but I didn't work on it yesterday b/c I was stuck on ENVS, which I'm still stuck on, and then this morning I just now remembered I have the midterm due tomorrow.]

I only got 6 hours of sleep last night. I'm not going to get any tonight. And I'm sick. Help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sue me for the homestarrunnerism in my title.

So Zelig [who has "Zelig'd" us with many belongings since he and his wife have moved out of Philadelphia] shot Reuven and I an e-mail yesterday asking if there were any undergrads who wanted to do a small research job for him, which will be paid 12$ an hour. I decided since I still have a week left before classes start, I could take the job myself.

Today I was introduced to JANES, which is the Judaic and Near Eastern Studies section of the Library, room 401. It has a lot of Jewish books. All I had to do was to find the articles he had listed and look up what exact pages they were on, and fix if he had any other publishing information down incorrectly. Pretty easy, right?

Well for the most part it was [though there were a bunch of books in German, a few in French, and one in Hebrew, but I managed] except that he had a few call numbers listed incorrectly. So I'm more than halfway done [22 out of 29] having spent 2 hours on this. He expected the whole thing to take 4 hours. I also have to trek out to the Center for Judaic Studies on 4th street and walnut, which will happen on Thursday, since I have an appointment on 18th and walnut, and I'm biking there anyways so what's another 14 blocks? I also have to stop at the Anthropology Museum [monge-land!] so I can do that tomorrow after I go to student health at 9:30 am.

One book was, sadly, missing from the collection, so I'm not sure what to do about that. But the plus side is that I saw the moveable stacks in the west wing of the 4th floor, which are pretty darn cool. You press a bunch of buttons and they move so that the aisle you want to go down is open. This conserves space. I just wouldn't want to get stuck in one of those, since I doubt they have a safety mechanism.

I made 24$ today! Yay!