A: Daryl

Q: "Why is the telephone in the fridge?"

Special Intelligence

Wren: also, thank god I quit the forum when I did. What the fuck.
Baron: yes, it has gotten horrible
Baron: I think I'm done with forum
Wren: LOL I AM CORPSE CHILD AND I HAVE A CAMERA, DID YOU KNOW THAT?
Wren: WTF, NO RLY?
Wren: (OMG U ATTENTION WHORE GO AWAY)
Wren: STFU, NAZI
Wren: - -;
Baron: it's like the past three months of forum posting condensed into four lines of text...
Wren: I know.
Wren: worst part is that took no effort at all.

The World is Evil

I was beginning to be worried about Fam, but I finally got ahold of her today so I could thank her for the zafu/zabuton money and my Valentine's Day gift from Harry and David (pears, apples, and three kinds of cheese. As soon as it all ripens I am feasting on a plate of slices of everything while listening to 2raumwohnung.) She's doing okay. Muttered something about finding a 25-year old cabana boy in Cancun who wants to do nothing but ravish her. I quickly filed that under "Things I never thought I would ever hear my Aunt say unless I was suddenly ported to an alternate dimension where I was a cat."

The conversation left me with a general impression that the world is evil, though. I've believed my entire life that people are genuinely good, but sometimes things come along and try to change my mind, and each time it gets a little harder to get over it. Because of this, I'm really upset and depressed today.

First, my uncle evidently does not want me to find out about the divorce AT ALL. He says that he's afraid it will upset me too much and I won't be able to focus in school. I told Fam "wow, he doesn't give me very much credit, does he?" I mean yes, I am upset, but I'm keeping it together, adjusting, and looking for ways to help out, like getting a job. I've been through worse, and I am by no means a delicate porcelein flower. It sounds like he's trying to look out for my best interests, but I wonder how much of it was really driven by cowardice. He's afraid to talk to me about it, and this seems like the most reasonable way to justify putting it off. But like I told Fam, "so when is he planning on telling me, exactly? It's not like I'm going to be in the area any time soon." She has no idea. I'm not holding my breath. The worst thing about this is I just have to wait and pretend to be completely oblivious.

Secondly...I'm almost afraid to tell people because of how much its upset me, but it's what is making me so upset. I'm not that close with my blood relations, but there are a couple who I remember liking. One of my cousins risked the wrath of the family and married a black man. I always admired her for how brave she was and how happy they were. She had a daughter by a previous marriage, who when I was 12 married a guy who was 20 years older than her.

Well, I found out today that the daughter's husband shot her and then killed himself. She was only 25. They had four children, none of which are older than four, who now have no parents. The four-year-old was the one who found them. My cousin and her husband are taking them in so they don't have to be separated, but that child...that's not something that's forgettable. The younger ones will be fine, but...just...the world is evil.

I wasn't told why he did it. Maybe there isn't really a why. And that's why I'm so upset. How can things like this happen? How can someone actually DO THAT to his wife, his own children?

It's fundamentally wrong. I can't imagine a mind selfish enough to be able to do that to everyone he knew. Because he didn't just kill himself and his wife by doing this. He killed his kids, his family, her family, their friends. He killed me. That may sound weird, but it's the truth. He ripped something vital out of everyone who knew them in the slightest and told everyone who cared just how worthless he perceived them all to be.

I don't just feel bad for the children, or for his wife. I feel bad for him. I feel bad for everyone else who had to find out about this and has to deal with it now. That's why it's hurting me so much.

Sometimes my brain scares me.

Wren: "That prostitute who was hospitalized and had two pints of semen pumped out of her stomach... sucks less than they do."

And, if that wasn't scary enough for you, behold the new sign for our door.

Karma Slave

Well, the ex seems to have decided to stop talking to me completely. I'm not really all that surprised, but I do have to say it makes me kind of sad. I am used to it, tho. I haven't had a single relationship end with me on speakng terms with the other person. Doesn't make it any less sucky, but at least I know how to deal with it by now. And, well... I won't have any guilt for moving on. He no longer has any ties to me at all, so I can't hurt him.

That makes a lot of people I have stopped communicating with this month. My uncle, him, Anna, and a couple of other people from Saint Louis. Nothing is tying me down anymore, so Tacoma no longer has to battle to be my home.

It doesn't really bother me, though. I'm not as sad as I expected I would be, which is a good thing, because if I were sad I'd become bitter about the friendships and relationships that I've lost. At least this way I can move on with no qualms and keep the good memories.

Actually, I feel kind of free. ^^;

Last night I seem to have gone insane

So I did almost all my homework and then went to bed at midnight.

And today I feel free. BWAHA.

On a more random note:

I have a new goal in life. I'm going to buy a ferret and name it Zsch.

The one thing I regret in my life is not flinging the pitcher of ice water on my doctor when I had the chance

...but that, my friends, is a story for another day.

I'm getting another infection in my right sinus. I'm more prone to them on that side since part of my sinus is missing completely, so everything just pools and is gross. If it gets bad enough, it basically spreads to my ear and over to my other sinus and then I'm just...basically drowning in phlegm. So...tomorrow morning I'm headed into CHWS to see if I can get some antibiotics and get this dealt with before Monday. If I leave it alone until then, I am going to be a very sick Wren, indeed.

It's been a pretty crappy day. At least Spring Break is all sorted out now. Tomorrow we find out if we got our Theme House renewed. If not...yay for a week of random and frantic house hunting.

The College Guide to Busyness

Too busy? Here's how a normal life gets sacrificed to find time for all those labs and papers.

Social Life
Shower
Food
Sleep
Health
Class
Sanity

::EDIT:: I'm not sure how, but I forgot to include showering. Which sparked the entire conversation, because Maddo and I were having a discussion about how sad it was we had to write showering on our to do lists...

Also, if "sanity" is on there then health should be, as well. Both decline steadily as things get bad, it is true, but I think there are measurable and specific times for when both just snap. So the snapping point is what I've got listed up there.

Why Yesterday Sucked: a long and likely esoteric essay

I have lived through days that were determined to suck before, but yesterday was the first time I felt the full force of the cosmos align and zoom at my face, claws extended, cackling like an insane witch on acid and a shiny new broomstick.

It started when I walked into Cell Bio. I was joking around and fake yelling at John for wearing a beanie when I had just given him my old hair glue and dyed his mohawk a beautiful and shocking shade of blue when I hear Das Uberbittchen say "Wren, good to see you awake!" I finish my sentence to John, wonder quietly to myself exactly when I became the star for the National Lampoon's-style sequel to Groundhog Day, and turn to reply to her. I was going to be polite, but something in me snapped when I heard her say to one of her friends "Wow, she NEVER hears me! Tee hee!"

My eyes narrow and become angry, so the rest of my face naturally follows ("I've seen your eyes try to kill people, Wren."- My chem lab partner. But I get ahead of myself.) She sees me, and begins to turn pale as she feels me hate at her with every cell in my exhausted little body. "Will you stop saying that to me?" It was not a request.

"...B-but I've only said it TWICE!"
"And it wasn't funny then, which magically makes it less funny upon repetition." With that, I storm to my seat and start a second day of notes on enzymes out with the phrase "STAB. FUCKING STAB STAB STAB."

After that, however, the day seemed like it was going to improve. Cell Bio was uneventful, lunch wasn't bad, and chem class was more review of stuff that had been pounded into my head Freshman year. So I figured I'd breeze through Chem lab, come home early, and work on my MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF HOMEWORK.

Okay, in all honesty, assuming that was probably my first mistake, but that doesn't make Chem Lab any less hellish in reality. It just means it was EVEN WORSE in the confines of my head.

It sounded like it was going to be fun. It was an acid-base titration lab which used common household products as the analyte, and it seemed pretty laid back...even, dare I say, interesting. (Which should have been my second clue. Ah, hindsight.) This was also the first year anyone had ever done or taught the lab.

Here's where the Chem jargon comes in, so bear with me: We had been told in class that we were supposed to use just enough analyte to get an equivalence point between 20-40mL of titrant. Under no circumstances were we to use more than 50mL of titrant because he didn't want us to have to refill our burets in the middle of the experiment. Unfortunately, he knows both my lab partner and I have taken the chemistry class that is ENTIRELY TITRATIONS. When it all started, though, we assumed we'd be operating under the same set of rules.

We chose two products to analyze: Coke and Tide. We've been told that if we dilute ~25mL of Coke to 50mL with DI water we'll get the equivalence point where we need it. Aaaand, we don't. We get one at 10mL. So we call over the professor. "Huh. He says. Okay, you need to use less. Try ~5mL." It never occured to us that he was going to be dead fucking wrong, so we remade out solution, reboiled some more Coke, and did the titration again.

And got an equivalence point at ~3mL. =_=;

So we tell the prof, and he says "Why didn't you tell me I was wrong?" "Because I assumed I could trust you, Nesh." So we do the titration yet again with straight ~50mL of Coke. By then, the first hour of lab has gone by, and we're getting a little stressed. This time, we get an equivalence point at ~10mL, so Nesh decides that no one is allowed to use Coke for titrations and tells us to start new with something else. Which means that we have just completely wasted our first hour of lab and have two hours to basically start from scratch.

At this point, the bitter internal monologue kicks in, and I start wanting to ask why not only were the recommended values useless, but was there an analyte that was impossible to titrate under the required conditions in lab AT ALL? I mean, seriously. If you're making a new lab, shouldn't you test it out before letting the students dive on in?

So we move on and titrate vinegar, which luckily happens uneventfully. At this point, it is four o' clock, and we have 50 minutes left in lab. We should be done, but because of the Coke fiasco we have to analyze one more product. So we take the recommended value of Tide, mix it into the DI water, and let it heat and be all stirred so everything mixes up properly. I'm sure you can imagine that it takes time to prepare the solution.

So it gets done, we run a test, and get an equivalence point at 45mL. The recommended amount of Tide was wrong again. So we had to mix up another solution using .50 grams less than previously, let it cook, and try again. At this point my eyes start trying to kill people for the second time that day, and I am so angry that my chemistry goggles keep FOGGING. Luckily, we get an equivalence point at 30mL this time, so we set up for our careful titration. It's 4:30, but we figure we'll be out right at the end of lab, no problem.

Well, we run the titration and get a short, but shallow equivalence point at 30mL. Nesh sees it and goes "No, no, you need to keep titrating. I want to see the pH down around 2." At this point, the pH is about 11, we're stuck in a buffer zone, and we have...5mL of titrant left to dispense?

"Refill your buret and keep going." My lab partner and I want to DIE, because it is now 4:45, and we should be cleaning up. But we do as he says and keep titrating, but the solution is EVIL. Finally, at 5:10 we have finished up the titration. There are no fewer than THREE equivalence points and we have used 100mL of titrant, and the pH is still above 2. Our graph looks like hell because every time we dispense some HCl, the pH of the solution will drop, and then spend the next 30 seconds to a minute slowly rising again. Unfortunately, we have to wait until the pH has stabilized to proceed, so we're stuck sitting there, STARING AT IT WITH HATE.

"I want to DIE," I muttered at one point, curled into a fetal position on the lab bench, goggles fogged, 400mL beaker of .10M HCl dangerously close, staring at the slowly rising pH on the computer screen.

"Why?" says my chem professor. I try not to fling the HCl at him-- or worse, cry. To him, what we were going through was oh so very fascinating, but all I could think about was why didn't you idiots test this shit out beforehand?!"

He finally lets us clean up, and before we go, he asks us about what we analyzed and takes notes. So we tell him that not only were the initial values we needed to make the Coke solution absolutely WRONG, but that it was also completely useless in the experiment. "We won't be using that again, then." Oh, and the Tide? The initial value was .50 grams too high, and there are three equivalence points, only one of which happens between the 20-40mL mark. You have to refill the buret to complete it. He writes on the chalkboard "3 eq pts?". "What, do you not trust our work," I ask? "No, it's just that I don't want to get yelled at if someone else does it and doesn't get three."

Oh, so it's just that you don't trust our work. Okay.

Then, as we're leaving, he says "I know you guys didn't want to stay late, but just think: You've made sure that this will go so much more smoothly for the other labs."

I am ashamed to say that hearing that made me even more angry.

So I went home, collapsed, and ended up playing KOTOR for three hours instead of doing homework. I woke up early today to get it done, and I'm skipping chem class to eat pizza and blog this.

And that, boys and girls, is the backstory to explain how it was even POSSIBLE for me to come up with "Darth Brooks."

I am a genius.

1. "Darth Brooks."

2. "I'm bilingual. Heavy on the bi, light on the lingual."

It's been a long day.

Angry Wrens

I think we are the only school in the NATION to not have President's Day off.

*gumbles and goes back to working on her paper*

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	7
Mind:	8.2
Body:	5
Spirit:	9.6
Friends/Family:	3.5
Love:	7.7
Finance:	5.8
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

Yes, quiz.

Angry Animals

I was having problems falling asleep last night, and so found myself idly thinking what animals people I know resemble when they are angry. I finally fell asleep and forgot about it until this morning, when I walked into Cell Bio. An old hallmate of mine is in the class, much to my dismay, because early in my freshman year she decided I was weird and has since been an utter bitch to me. I don't really appreciate the way she acts like I'm going to do a trick every time I see her, either, so I can say the sentiment is mutual. - -;

Today, after hauling my arse through the wind and the cold (I want you to imagine the coldest gale-force winds you can and send them off the ocean at ME. THROUGH THE TREES, MOTHERFUCKERS.) Yes, as I was saying, wind and cold, I walk into Cell Bio, head for my desk, and hear Das Uberbittchen say "Wren, good to see you awake." In this voice. - -;

I learned something about myself at that moment. There are some people with whom I can have no sense of humor. Had anyone else said that to me, I wouldn't have cared, but she is not my friend, and thus had no right. Also, she wasn't being funny. It was malicious. Bitch, I don't need you to point out that I missed three classes because I have sleeping problems, now do I?

So I muster the most insencere voice possible and reply "Oh, ha."

And then the memories from last night came flooding back, so without futher ado, here's a list of angry animals and their people:

ME: Oppossum
When I get angry, my first instinct is to look as threatening as possible, and I also get prickly. Not literal prickles, but they're certainly there if you know the signs. If you've ever seen an opossum get angry, they open their mouths, hunch up, and become double row of TEETH. They hope that if they look scary enough the source of the anger will go away and leave them in peace. That's me to a T. I'm pretty sure I've bared my teeth a few times, too. >>;

HIMI: Owl
When Himi gets miffed, he hunches his eyebrows down over his eyes and scrunches up. With his hair, it makes him look ruffled, and so he reminds me of an owl. The owls I used to work with did that all the time and you wanted to pet them, but you know it will just make them more offended because they want to be taken SERIOUSLY, DAMNIT. And so he's an owl. Anna was an owl, too. I never expected to meet two owl people. I mean, do you know how hard it is to channel a pissed off, fluffy bird of prey?

SARAH: Cat
When cats get annoyed by something, they leave and deal with it alone. That's like Sarah. She will avoid a situation once it has made her angry and go off on her own until she has recovered. Very quiet rage. She doesn't sulk as well as cats do, though. Which is a good thing. ^^;

DARYL: Dog
He gets loud and angry and lets everyone know about it. Oh yes. Woof.

MADDO: Rat
Rats get angry defensively. Every little bone in their body radiates rage, but they won't do anything retaliatory unless they're provoked. They're very quiet about it, but also very intense.

MATT: ...
Matt's angry is sad. I do not think I have ever seen him angry once in the entire time I have known him. Which is actually very humbling...

Slowest week EVER

At least all I have to do tonight is chemistry homework. A lot of chemistry homework. A ton of chemistry homework. All the chemistry homework I didn't have time to do for the past three days due to Biology.

A also think I may have failed that frigging exam. I couldn't answer 2 questions at all, so that's 7pts off right there. I'll blame my being sick so much and not miss any more classes in chem or bio and see if that helps, because I was certainly busting my ASS doing the work for both those classes. And I have nothing to show for it. Fucktastic.

My zafu and zabuton have shipped, at least. So come Monday I'll have a couple of nice cushions on which to rest my arse.

Mmmmm, arse.

Happy Valentine's Day Massacre Anniversary!

Today I learned that people showing up unannounced at my house with lavender roses and dark chocolate make me a very, very embarassed Wren.

It was a nice break. I've been doing biology nonstop for most of the day. Tomorrow I get up at 8, study for my Bio exam until 1 when I go to Bio lab, then do lab, then study for exam from 4-6 over dinner, and then take exam till 8, and then DIE. And by die, I mean do the homework I need to do for Thursday...

I am also out of yarn, so may or may not be going through knitting withdrawals. MY SCARF IS SO AWESOME. It channels essence of teddy bear and leaves you WARM AND FUZZY.

Chicken Scratch

"Wren- you have r well focused response to the yenderic project afof Orrentaic Love, w/ y mun number if interesting questines. All you needed was just r bit more ckiity in following though w/ P. questions you rise. (Esk in the 2nd 1/2 of the 1st pgph.) These were the more control questions 1) was this knowledge purely instruentil? 2) is there a real ubsoluse difference, N s the absoluteness R fabriztition of ossenRlisn?"

TRANSLATION: I got an A- on my paper, and I have no idea why.

Good Deed for the Day.

So I get woken up at 6:45 AM today by a phone call from a number I don't recognize. I didn't answer it and went back to bed because it was from the same area code as Fam and Unc, so I figured it was one of them forgetting that I'm two hours behind them (yet again). I checked my messages later, and it turned out to be a wrong number. Unfortunately, it was a rather important message. The caller was someone from the Holiday Inn HR department. She was trying to reach a woman about a job, and was telling her how she should go ahead and fax in her resume so they could get started on the rest of the hiring process...

So I called back and explained what had happened to the HR lady. I wasn't about to just ignore it and possibly deprive someone of a job through no fault of their own.

The woman was estactic about it, too: "Oh my, you are so kind! Thank you so much! You are so kind!"

I hate talking to strangers on the phone, but for this...I really didn't have a choice.

Blue

Today was a very busy, exhausting day, but it was a lot of fun. I cooked dinner for the house and three guests and then we made the mistake of watching Vanilla Sky. @.@ Good movie, wrong time of day.

My housies got me a nice hand mixer and a set of mixing bowls. This thrills me to no end because now I can bake without killing my forearms/running out of bowls. They were afraid Himi would make them look bad with what he got me, but that was certainly not the case. Like I told my roomie, I'll be able to use this stuff for years and years, and it makes doing something I love a lot easier. Also, ceramic mixing bowls with non-slip grips=OMG LOVE. I have almost dropped mixing bowls so many times.

And here is where blogger deleted half my post. I am too tired to rewrite it, tho. So I'll report the rest later.

Time to collapse into bed so I can study for my chem exam tomorrow. Thank you to everyone who gave me a call or IMed me today. (Even if half of you WERE calling me an old biddy.)

NOTE TO SELF: Tomorrow, post pics of monster purse. It is more awesome than I can say. I have dubbed him "What's-his-face." You shall see why. XP*

o.O;

How can an "interest meeting" be MANDATORY?

My first chem exam is Thursday.

I was worried about it until he told us the keys to last year's exams are up on Blackboard. I go to check them out. They run about 6-8 multi-step problems, very simple, and the quiz I took last week and got a B on was two of the problems direct from the old exam...

So now I'm less stressed about the amount of time I need to spend studying on my birthday for this exam.

*force dances*