Happy Freaking New Year - Ninety Second Post

I don't have any new years resolutions. At least, I didn't when I started this post. A new year is just a new day, after all, and I don't have the money to initiate any radical lifestyle changes just yet. I'd like to eat healthier and exercise, but winter isn't the best time to start trying to motivate yourself to do something unpleasant, like exercise in the cold, and my paycheck comes in a few weeks, so no fancy expensive health food for me until then. So, no big resolutions are really possible for me at this point.
I don't really get the whole hubbub around the new year. Yeah, it's a new year, but I'm not that old and I've already experienced 23 first days of new years. Now those years are old and gone. in a few years, I probably won't be able to recall anything more about 2014 than I can about 1994 (that is, a few snippets that blur together). There's a statistic floating around the internet that says that 8% of New Year's Resolutions are actually kept, so according to that, I won't be able to keep a resolution worth beans. Why bother with all the pomp and circumstance? I'll just bide my time and enact small but important lifestyle changes when I can gather up the motivation and funding necessary.
2014 is going to look different from 2013, mostly because I have the full time job that is grad school. No graduation in the spring this year, and no moving from state to state and panicking over the lack of housing. I'll still be scrambling to pay school fees and wishing I had more time to do outdoorsy stuff, but it'll be with the promise of a regular, salary-dependent paycheck coming soon.
No  more Whitworth, except via the mail they send me in hopes that I'll cough up more money (and heaven help the poor kid doing phonathon who has to call me).
Some similarities are to be expected. I'll be teaching labs again and enjoying that warm feeling inside when a student gets excited about science. The difference is that now I know that I like teaching, whereas I started 2013 not knowing.
I suppose I do have resolutions, of a kind, for the year. I want to save up and buy a new computer, since this one is slowly and steadily breaking down (the DVD drive went out, and the CPU is always running at 90% or higher). I also want to save up for a car, but that will have to wait for the computer. I can live without a car, obviously, but this computer is going to kick the bucket sooner or later and I can't afford to live without a computer. Being in charge of other people's grades is a huge hassle when you think your computer might die.
Just for the heck of it, I'll resolve to try indoor rock climbing this year. This way, when someone asks what my resolutions are, I can give them that one. Plus, I started off 2014 by eating chocolate while writing blog posts at 2 AM. I don't think any "healthy living" resolutions would have lasted past that little set-back.

Anyway, happy New Year if you're into that sort of thing!

Thirty Third Post

Well, school has started.
As has the deluge of homework. Well, it's more like "dormwork" or "coffeeshoppework" or "librarywork" or "Kraftwerk" in my case, but whatever. In any case, it's a flood of Biblical proportions, thanks to my class schedule. I believe I was moaning about it in apprehension, but a few of my professors turned out to be crazy enough that my expectations were exceeded.
Would you all like a summary of how my day went? Of course you would!
Here's a slightly-edited copy of the email I sent my curious parents last night, which is a slightly-edited version of the long series of IMs that I sent a friend while he was offline, resulting in a glut of notifications when he logged back in.

(From) Bored College Student
(To) Mom and Dad
(Subject) First Day of Class in Summary Complete With my Feelings at the Time

What I Did Today:

Wake up. Bleh... Although I did get 11 hours of sleep, I'm kind of sick.
Go to core and make it on time, but only barely. Yay, no public spectacle!
Core lasts 70 minutes instead of 50. NOT OKAY.
Have to forgo breakfast of coffee and scone. *Murderous rage*
German- Awesome professor, Frau Buxton, pretends to scare us off (the thick accent helped), and later says that one student is "legit" because his name is for real (it wasn't on her master list, hence her skepticism, plus it starts with two Zs). Day considered salvageable.
Lunchtime. Food, yay!
CREAM OF BROCCOLI SOUP FOR THE WIN! (Best lunch EVER!)
Irritating classmate from high school (who I thought was long gone) finds me and drags me to her table. Day no longer quite so awesome... Lunch slightly ruined.
Discussion group for core. Meh...
Late for organic chemistry. Blugh...
Forget iclicker. Ugh.
Get headache from closeness of room and from professor's voice. Boo...
Discover whereabouts of cookies (previously removed from room; primary suspect- classmate from high school that helped me with physics last year, but makes a general nuisance of himself as a rule). Yay!
Drink cider. Good stuff, that...
Hang out with a friend from high school who is fun to hang out with for a bit, but tends to grate on my nerves after too long (who invited herself to my room). Good up to a point.
Discover that I am totally high on being sick. Woohoo!
Karate! I love karate...
Skip meeting for shower. Win!
Break shower handle. Water is freezing.
Fix shower handle! Water promptly scalds me.
Type up long, rambling email.

To Do Later:

Do german homework? Maybe... (I did some...)
Stress a little about the fact that I have gobs of homework already? Absolutely. (Yep)
Psych myself up about having a peaceful breakfast at 7:30 in the morning when all I want to do is sleep... (Not so much. And I took to long to get ready and had to put off breakfast until I got out of class at 9:30.)


All in all, it worked out to be an okay day, and today was pretty good other than an epic battle with my printer, which wasn't (note the past tense, cause I won) speaking to my computer, and an ongoing battle with a homework site that won't accept my login.
But tomorrow's Friday! That means that I can trudge through class and then try to get a random assignment for my o-chem class posted to a (different) homework site (that works). Then I get to avoid being dragged around by the friend from home who grates on my nerves but didn't steal my cookies (you know who you are, cookie thief!). She needs to make her own friends. I have my own things to do; she has hers. With luck, this will become apparent to her soon.
Anyway, I've stalled on copying down my German wortschatz for long enough, and we have a vokabelquiz on Monday.