So I had my first plants biology lab this week and it went really well. The awkward thing is that I walked into the room and didn’t know a single person (besides of the instructors, because she’s also one of my profs and I had her for my plants biology lab last term as well). And then a girl sits down next to me and introduces herself and guess who’s got a new lab partner? That’s right, me! It turns out that we both took the same plants biology course last term and we figured out where we sort of recognized each other from – we also had the same plants biology lab. Total fail for memory, I know. She’s also in my invertebrates zoology class and she’s in my invertebrates zoology lab as well. I know people! I know people! Oh, also turns out that she is in my biochemistry lecture as well, so hopefully a good resource and will be my friend? I feel so awkward when I say crap like that though.

Makes me sound like a little kid going “Will you let me take a look at your notes? I’ll be your bestest friend forever.”

I also have two TAs in that plants lab – one’s a Masters student, the other is an undergrad (and same age as me o_O). Plus we did a few cross-sectionings today and my slide of my stained yam (yes, I said yam – stained it to look at the starch) got photographed for the class website. Yeah, total dorkish moment there. But it was cool. I got asked if I had taken the plants class last term because I was using tips I had gotten then for making my cross-sections (the answer, of course, was yes).

Ahem, Besides my major biology geekery there ^… I’ve spent money lately, for two lab manuals and custom courseware. What I hate is how my school handles stuff like lab manuals and custom courseware. If it’s lab manuals for science classes or custom course materials for science classes – they’re not available through the school’s bookstore. Instead, they’re available through a somewhat related student club. For instance, I had to track down the biology club in order to buy my invertebrates zoology lab manual, I went to the microbiology club’s room to buy my biochemistry custom courseware and I had to get my plants lab manual directly from my professor (because the botany club doesn’t handle sales?). In previous years, when I had to get (required) custom course materials for classes like chemistry, some biology classes and English, I could get everything through my school’s bookstore – meaning one stop, one line-up, one swipe of the credit card rather than needing exact change in small bills. /rant.

Anyways… Things have been going pretty well thus far (then again, only the fourth day of school, so who knows?). I did, however, realize that in my last week of classes before the spring/reading break that I get, I have 3 lecture midterms and 1 lab midterm. Which would be fine if I didn’t have two midterms on the same day (lab and lecture) but the lecture midterm is in the late evening (7-9pm) and the next morning (at 8am), I have another lecture midterm =/ Sounds like fun, doesn’t it? I’m going to ask my prof (for the 7-9pm midterm) if it will be possible to write it at another time, since I do live off campus and I’d be a) getting home at around 11pm and b) needing to wake up at 5:30am. And while I would really love to suffer and go through sleep deprivation for the sake of getting something that resembles a grade, I’m going to see if I can write it on another day, like on Wednesday or something. So I don’t fall asleep during my morning midterm or something.

Gah. I need to stop talking about school.

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Today is Day 12 of my winter holiday break.

Tomorrow is Day 13 of my winter holiday break.

Which is also my last day of winter holiday break as term 2 (which has, as of today, been paid for!) starts on Monday.

Which means I’ll be waking up at 5:00am in order to go to school (on time) because I have a class at 8am.

(Which also means that I will cry as I will no longer be able to sleep in, and I’ll have to go to bed at a decent time. And also cry because I only had 13 days off. I know many someones who had 20+ days off. I hate loathe dislike envy you all.)

Actually, I start at 8am on Tuesdays as well. Along with Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Fudge.*

I’m taking four classes this (very) upcoming term:

Invertebrates biology – really looking forward to this class as it involves awesome things like worms, insects, crustaceans, etc. I took Vertebrates Biology last year, term 1, and absolutely loved the class – this one is similarly structured

Vascular plants biology – also really looking forward to this class, I took the ’sister class’ [Non-Vascular Plants] in term 1 and loved it, and the teaching team!

Cell Biology II- essentially an introduction to biochemistry – I liked Cell Biology I, which I had just finished, so this should be interesting!

Calculus – ahem, retaking this and incredibly determined to kick ass**, and abuse my professor’s office hours and tutorial time, for this class

12 hours of lectures per week, along with 6 hours of lab time (for Invertebrates and Vascular Plants). Coupled with a total of 5.5 hours of breaks (spread out throughout all days, of course) and 3 hours of travel time per day. Making it a grand total of 38.5 hours per week for school and travel. Not including studying time, of course. Haven’t bought any of my textbooks yet (still waiting for the booklist to update, as there’s no textbook listed for Cell Biology II) and I know I will have to at least buy a textbook for calculus (a little difficult to do my homework without it, I would think).

And now, the end of my school talk – because I’ll be posting about what I think of my new professors on Monday/Tuesday.

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First thing’s first…

I got approved for a new fanlisting! The Ethan Lovett & Lesley Lu “Lulu” Spencer fanlisting. They’re are two characters in the ABC soap opera General Hospital. They started off as adversaries, then they decided to be friends, and then, it turns out that they’re half siblings. I love their relationship. Hence the fanlisting. Besides… Ethan has an Australian accent. Which was a really pleasant surprise, I applied for the fanlisting nearly a month ago so I nearly forgot about it.

Work was okay, rather boring and long, but it was okay overall. The new logo that was revealed a while ago, came with a new company website (of course). They came up with little slogans for each product line and someone actually approved the phrase “you need balls for this job”. For a company website. I’m not sure why someone would approve that. I mean, yes, on some level it’s amusing. But at the same time, for a professional website for a company that deals with people on an international scale, it’s not appropriate. That and I don’t have much of a sense of humour tonight.

I went thrift store shopping with my eldest sister today and it turns out that I introduced her to it. I found a really cute hoodie (green with white daisies all over it) but the sleeves were ratty and… it had this horrible smell to it. I mean, the smell would probably come out with a good washing (maybe). But I didn’t like the sleeves. I also found sweatshirts and such from my school – the thrift store was selling them for $5-6 and they retail for $60+ at my school’s bookstore (granted, those ones don’t come with stains…).

Some… stuff happened tonight, so I don’t really feel like writing too much. I did want to share my new fanlisting acquisition though, since I love their relationship and all that.

Anyways, I decided that I will be making a dolly blog so I won’t bore you all to death with details about Sophie and her hopefully soon-to-be expanding wardrobe and other dolly-craft endeavours! It will probably be on a subdomain (I have 3 domains already… And I’m not that good at updating all of them!) but I need help coming up with a name!

Because, left to my own devices, I just know that I’ll end up with something like… “Make Believe” or “Imagine” or something equally non-descriptive, short and… well… kind of boring.