Fw:Sv:

No need for a goodbye.

So I’ve realized that no one really ends texting conversations. There’s just an ending point, and both parties know it. It’s kind of like online conversations. Unless you’re really busy and have to tend to other things, you typically don’t really say anything like “I’ll talk to you later” .. conversations just die. I mean if this happened in person, how awkward would THAT be? Today I was carrying on a few conversations via text, and not a single one ended with any kind of goodbye. But, given the amount of time that has passed, and the message in the last text sent, it is established that that conversation has ended.

I think this has attributed to my inability to end conversations and say goodbye when in an awkward social setting. I wish people had little X’s in the right hand side of their heads so I could just exit them.

Has anyone tried the BRB move in person? It works like a charm, until they try to find you and ask where you went & why you never returned…

oh dear.

..and people wonder why I’m such a slacker..

So I would rank this semester as one of the semesters which I slacked off the most.. that or it was just one of the easiest. I was rarely ever in class, or even anywhere near the vicinity of campus (or my apt) for that matter, yet somehow, I managed to pass all of my classes, and pulled off a 3.0 for the classes that I chose the A-F grading scale for. (I did P/F for two classes)

So let me break it down… this is more for me than for you, but feel free to read!

World Regions [Mondays 5:30-8:30] I pretty much skipped every class except for maybe the first 5…. maybe. Even then, I barely ever stayed the entire time. I didn’t read any of the chapters that quizzes were on, but since we could take the quizzes over and over until we got a decent grade, I pulled off an A average for the quizzes. However, on exams I faired much worse. For the two exams given, my average was 65. That would be a D. But because of his lenient grading policy, I pulled off a B for this class. Go me!

Travel & Tourism Management [Online course] We had to take a quiz for this class every two weeks, no exams, two survey projects that as long as we turned them in, we got 100%. Easy Peasy. 20 minute time limits on the quizzes, 14 questions. I never read the chapters the quizzes were given on, I simply outlined it and referred to it during the quiz. Because of the easy workload and easy A’s on the ‘projects’, I pulled off an A for the class.

Philosophy of Science [Tues/Thurs 11-12:15] This was my writing intensive class. And freakin’ reading intensive too. But did I do the readings? No. (are you starting to see a trend here?) To give me SOME credit, I did do some of the readings in the beginning of the semester, back when I had some studiousness in me. (Is that a word? Whatever, it wasn’t underlined in spell check.) Then that dissolved and I went back to my old ways. So I did three papers on subjects I knew little about, I skipped a whole lot towards the middle of the semester, so I had no idea what was going on by the time I had to write my final paper. I had gotten B’s and C’s on my previous two papers, I missed practically every in class assignment and failed with flying colors on the day I was there to take a reading comprehension test. Oh and did I mention for every two classes we missed, she’d deduct half a letter grade from our final grade? Oh man. So having skipped at least a months worth of classes, tell me how I pulled off a C? Beats me, but I really want to know what I got on my final paper now…

Sociology of Collective Action [Tues/Thurs 2-3:15 *P/F option*] Ah. Sociology. My good ol’ 2 o’clock. Let’s just say I didn’t do any readings (there’s that trend popping up again), I never showed up, didn’t do any group work, didn’t get any participation credit, showed up for 4/10 reading quizzes, did 3/12 writing assignments given to us, and barely passed my first two exams. By the end of the semester, I was on the verge of getting a big fat F. So, I did the extra credit writing assignments and actually studied for my final. Dunno how it happened, but getting a B on my final gave me JUST enough, and I mean JUST enough to get me a D, passing the class, giving me that nice little ‘P’ on my transcript. And when I say JUST enough, you have to round up to give me that D. 59.65 rounded to a 60. Look at that beautiful number: 59.65 … had it been 59.40, I might have failed that class.

Family Relationships [Tues/Thurs 9:30-10:45 *P/F option*] This has got to be my most skipped class. I don’t do early mornings well, so being at 9:30 am doomed this class from the beginning. I did well actually in the beginning of the semester, even making it to every class. Got some credit for in class assignments too! Then I discovered, her lectures are pretty much power points that regurgitate the book. Why wake up for this nonsense?! Thus begins the skipping. I didn’t do so hot on the first exam, ’cause well… I didn’t study much. After the 2nd exam, I figured out the formula and actually went through her study guide and studied. Yay, decent grades on my exams. So having skipped all those classes I pretty much didn’t get any credit for those pesty in class assignments she likes to give out, yet all I needed on my final was a 70% to get a D in the class, which would give me the P to pass. Always one to squeak by, I got a 74%, giving me just enough points to pass the class.

So of the three classes which I chose to do the A-F option, I got a 3.0 which is what was used towards my overall GPA, boosting it from a 2.37 to a 2.42. (Why hadn’t I discovered the Pass/Fail option earlier!?) That’s almost a C+ average… Nice. Not bad for having had a .88 cumulative GPA my freshman year… >_O .. and that’s a whole ‘nother story we don’t want to revisit.

Vote For Hope

Posted by email from Julia’s posterous

Crucial Dream.

I had one of those scary dreams last night where you wake up with your heart beating so fast you can hear it thumping as if it were next to your ear. The dream shifted a lot from one location to another and my memory of it is hazy, but I’ll try my best to recollect what I can.

Basically some scary ass motherfucker was chasing me and I had a shotgun, but it shot arrows. He was far at first but he kept moving closer and closer, even as the arrows were striking him in the chest. I was in a small building, with no where to go. I just kept shooting him, cocking the gun, pulling the trigger, cocking the gun pulling the trigger. The trigger wasn’t moving fast enough. I kept wishing I had some kind of semi-automatic gun so it could just rain arrows on him. With each arrow, I kept hoping that maybe THIS arrow will be the one to bring him down. It wasn’t the case and he made his way to my little shack that I had made my base. He grabbed my ’shotgun’ and was about to stab me with one of the arrows he had ripped from his chest….

Suddenly I’m in a basement of sorts. I’m being held captive with some other people, who I can’t make out. They’re going to kill me and it’s certain. I keep looking around for an escape. Suddenly I get my opportunity when the captives start arguing with one of the other hostages. I make a run for it, but for some reason I decide to hide behind some curtains. And it wasn’t even like I was that stealthy about it, I was a big bump behind this thin ass fabric. But somehow I went unnoticed. The captives prepare to leave and my heart is racing, hoping they don’t look behind the curtain and find me there, trying to undermine their authority by attempting to escape.

As I’m hiding behind the curtains, I can see everything around me as if the curtain were see through. The captives are trying to set the building on fire and have us burn alive in it. I emerge from the curtains to talk to the other hostages. We must escape, and do it quickly. They’re boarding up the house as we’re standing there watching.

I eye a little hidden access door to the roof and remember that there’s an exit up there. I try not to let on that they had forgotten to board that up. I also eye some windows that looked boarded up but weren’t. The fire was burning, but really really slowly. It was as if they lit a leaf on fire, and were hoping the leaf would catch the rest of the building on fire, yet the emotion in the room was still of total panic. I headed up to the access door and one of the captives saw me, he immediately cursed himself for forgetting to board it up and tried to race me to it so that he could board it up. I was running for my life to get there before him to prevent him from getting in. As I stood at the door that stood between me and my potential murderer, my heart was racing out of control. I kept looking around the room to see if there was anything, anything at all, that I could use to block the door so he couldn’t get in, but there was nothing, and anything big enough, was too big for me to move myself. I was at a dead end.

Once I realized that I was going to die because there was nothing that I could do to block the guy from getting to me, I told my dream to rewind. Yeah. I rewound the dream back to the exact point in time when I decided to run to the roof. This time I didn’t. I waited until he was out of sight. But the dream went in a different direction. This time a bunch of us tried to squeeze through a tiny window that was left unboarded.

Now when I say tiny, this shit was tiny. It was probably a foot wide and 10 inches tall. I don’t know how but somehow I got my head and upper body through it. Then neighbors came out and we tried to act cool, as if we weren’t just trying to save ourselves from a burning building set by our captives by squeezing through an abnormally small window. So we busted out the radio and pretended like we were just chillin’ there bumpin to music. Yeah, like someone sticking halfway out a tiny ass window would really be concerned about rocking out to music. Anyways, I got tired of hanging halfway out the window so I slid back into the building.

I looked around for any other exit, and I found a window that was forgotten about. I remembered that it could be open with some elbow grease so I yanked, pulled and jimmied it from the wall and bam, off came the window and salvation was in front of us. We all squeezed through the window and were free at last.

The end.

I swear when I woke up in the middle of the dream (the part where the captive caught up to me in the attic) my heart was about to explode. Quite scary.

I didn’t know it was this hard…

Yesterday this lady (who only seemed to be able to point after her initial questions) asked if we had …. wait for it.. wait for it… ICE CREAM.

Why gee lady, you walk into an ice cream shop and see 30 some tubs of ICE CREAM in front of your face and you ask if we have ICE CREAM!?? What. The. Fuck.

I’ve also had a kid ask if he could choose the ice cream he was to get. Uh no. We’re nazi’s with our ice cream and you’ll eat what we give you damnit! You don’t have options here! But that wasn’t the end of it, he then asked.. “Can I choose from here?” and pointed to the ice cream case with tubs that are obvoiusly there to be chosen from.

No. You’ll choose from a catalog, and we’ll then ship it to you at a later date. This ice cream in front of you? It’s just there to tease you.

But I gave you $5.00..

11-12 year old girl’s total for her ice cream: $4.15
What she gives me: $4.00
What she had left in her hand: $1.00

This is the conversation that ensued:

Me: Do you have 15 cents?
Girl: (sadly shaking her head) No..
Me: I need that dollar.
Girl: (hands it to me)
Me: (hands her back 85 cents)
Girl: I thought it was $4.15?
Me: Yeah. It is.
Girl: But I gave you $5.00…
Me: .. Yeah… and I gave you 85 cents back..
Girl: (obviously confused face)
Me: You gave me four, and it was $4.15 so I needed the extra dollar making it five. Then I gave you back the change for it.. which is the 85 cents.
Girl: But I gave you five…
Me: Yeah…. and I gave you 85 cents….. 5.00 minus 4.15 is 85… which is what I gave you..
Girl: Oh…… (walks away)

I know this chick was still confused as she walked away. I wanted to bitchslap her.

is this what kids are wearing these days?

jenie (12:49:54): i want maternity clothes.
me (12:50:10): o_O
jenie (12:50:15): they’re so cute

UTZ!

So I was driving home last night around 130am on I-270 and there were little to no cars on the road. An UTZ truck exits onto the highway and I decide to ride its draft as to save on gas and increase my MPG. To my chagrin, he switched lanes as soon as i got behind him. I once again switch into his lane, and he switches into another lane again. This is odd… is he running way? .. I switch into his lane again and get behind him. Yet again, he switches out. Now he’s definitely messing with me.

I decide to switch back into his lane once more, if he switches out this time.. He’s definitely running from me! So I wait a few seconds and I get behind him. He switches two lanes over almost immediately. JERK!

This is frustrating, yet oddly amusing at the same time. I speed away ahead of him, peeved that he kept running from me. About a minute later we’re side by side and Clara, who was in my passenger seat, looks over at him and notices that he had just put his thumb to his nose and wiggled his four other fingers. As if to say “nyeEhh!!! can’t catch me!”, and then he waved, indicating he is of friendly nature. So she waved back. I also return the gesture and wave back. Let’s be friends!

Next time we get side by side with him, Clara tells me that he was rocking out to his music and was bobbing his head, steering with one arm. What a G.. Btw, the driver musta been in his mid 50’s. He had gray hair and errthang. When I looked over to witness it, he had turned to us and had a jolly grin on his face, dude was having a blast at 1:30 am driving his UTZ truck, messin’ with us on the highway. I thought this was hilarious.

Our final interaction took place when I was veering off to take the exit for I-66. I sped past him and he noticed me and honked a few times to get my attention, he turned his cabin light on and waved goodbye, with the same jolly grin. I did the same and we parted ways. =]

I’m saddened by the fact I’ll never see my UTZ truck driver again =[ he was cool.