Just wanted to drop a quick one to bring attention to the fact that I am awful at updating when I don't have shit due. Apparently, when I have ample time, I do things like watch reruns of Kitchen Nightmares, gorge myself on Chinese food and sleep for long stretches of time when I'm not blackout drunk and defecating on Arlington County property. Life's good; and by good, I mean mediocre at best.
Expect something good on Monday after my summer classes start. Epic.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Sunday, May 10, 2009
FAIL: My Study Habits
Let's just preface this for 2.5. Walk with me. I have some pretty severe anxiety and OCD problems. I was raised super Jewy and have unrealistically high expectations for myself, none of which are remotely within the realm of possibility. I also have wicked procrastination and general slacking problems. When brought together in the worst-sounding harmony of all time, you are presented with a story strikingly similar to the one I am about to regale you with now.
Finals Week has just come to an end at my university. I spent the majority of Hell Week - the week leading up to Finals Week - convincing myself that gchatting with Meg and Liz, texting a girl I don't particularly like but keep hooking up with, and making copious portions of food I'd never eat were all valid things to be doing instead of studying. I had a shit-ton of stuff due/presentations to make during Hell Week, but only one substantial project/presentation combo due during Finals Week itself.
Of course, leave it to me to read that one assignment's details wrong. Was it due Thursday like I thought...all semester? Nope. Due Tuesday. Figured it out Monday afternoon. Epic win. And by win, I clearly mean grievous, massive fail. Great, so, definitely haven't gotten started. But it's for that class in which I'm pretty positive the professor has some awkward mutant crush on me in the same way in which I have a creepy mutant awkward crush on her so it's all good. She thinks I'm a fantastic writer, I think she could potentially be good in bed if she didn't wear strange croc-like shoes with dress pants. Look, Julia, focus. Gotta get this shit started.
Okay, after House. I'm already watching it anyway, might as well finish it. I can just pull an all-nighter at Cabell and it'll be all good.
This is the point in the story that I forgot that I had a stomach flu not more than 24 hours ago, and that the symptoms - while significantly less completely-fucking-awful than they were - were still minorly present.
So what do I do? Easy. Throw my shit in the car, drop by 7-11 and pick up two "tall boys" of Amp, and fight a 'roided-up baseball player outside of Black for a parking space relatively close to Cabell.
After about 30 minutes, the first "tall boy" of Amp is down the hatch. I'm gettin' shaky, since I'm a pretty small kid and I hadn't eaten all day anyway thanks to the stomach flu. It's not that great. I've got the sweats, I'm trudging along on this project I'm half-assing anyway, and life is just not good. I'm throwing it together at the last minute, and nothing is going right (read: no technology in Cabell works, ever) so I'm not in the best mood as it is.
2:15am passes. 3am passes. I'm halfway into the second "tall boy" and I'm relatively positive that my heart will stop before the sun rises. Oh, and for the record? Yes. I watched the sun rise from the 4th floor of Cabell. It was the least romantic EVER.
Oh, so the point of this story.
I may or may not have almost committed a hate crime. Yeah. That's right.
So I'm a Jewish lesbian, right? I'm almost positive that nothing I do can ever ever be a hate crime. By definition. Plus I'm at easily the most diverse university in Virginia. There is nothing even a little bit actually racist about me. Usually.
There was an Asian guy in the workstation cubicle across from mine. These workstations are attached, but there are walls separating them all from each other. I'm sure you know the type if you've been to a library ever. Anyway, the only reason it's important to know he was Asian is because I'm pretty sure the security guard on duty at Cab at that point in the evening hates me anyway so he would automatically suspect that I'm in a white power gang. Oh and also that I'm a raging racist. And committing a hate crime.
So I'm sitting there, 3:30am, and the dude across from me has been kicking at/jolting/generally shaking the workstations for over an hour at this point. I'm going a little nuts, and I'm also behaving like what I'd imagine someone coming down off of meth acts when they care about their university grades and have a final due in a few hours that they have no chance of completing successfully. It came to the point where I slammed my pencil down, took out my iPod headphones and untangled myself from the web of cords leading the various electronics I needed to survive the evening. I took a few ragged deep breaths and restrained myself just enough not to stomp my way around the bay of workstations over to his side.
"Look, I'm trying to finish this stupid project and you're making it impossible to draw a straight line," I managed through gritted teeth when I arrived at his station.
It was then that I noticed the signs I couldn't through peeking at him over the top of the dividers. The twitch, the tics... Ah, shit, I thought to myself. This kid has Tourette's. I blinked a few times, nodded to myself, and slinked back to my side of the bay.
I was about to jack that kid in the face. And it would have been a double-hate crime. I'm an awful person.
Oh, and the project ended up being really sub-par. I made up for it in the oral presentation part of it, but only because I'm uncomfortably funny to socially inept art school ret--I mean, students. It comes to my attention I may need to be more sensitive to those with handicaps some time sooner rather than later.
Seriously, Julia.
Fail Factor: 9.1
Finals Week has just come to an end at my university. I spent the majority of Hell Week - the week leading up to Finals Week - convincing myself that gchatting with Meg and Liz, texting a girl I don't particularly like but keep hooking up with, and making copious portions of food I'd never eat were all valid things to be doing instead of studying. I had a shit-ton of stuff due/presentations to make during Hell Week, but only one substantial project/presentation combo due during Finals Week itself.
Of course, leave it to me to read that one assignment's details wrong. Was it due Thursday like I thought...all semester? Nope. Due Tuesday. Figured it out Monday afternoon. Epic win. And by win, I clearly mean grievous, massive fail. Great, so, definitely haven't gotten started. But it's for that class in which I'm pretty positive the professor has some awkward mutant crush on me in the same way in which I have a creepy mutant awkward crush on her so it's all good. She thinks I'm a fantastic writer, I think she could potentially be good in bed if she didn't wear strange croc-like shoes with dress pants. Look, Julia, focus. Gotta get this shit started.
Okay, after House. I'm already watching it anyway, might as well finish it. I can just pull an all-nighter at Cabell and it'll be all good.
This is the point in the story that I forgot that I had a stomach flu not more than 24 hours ago, and that the symptoms - while significantly less completely-fucking-awful than they were - were still minorly present.
So what do I do? Easy. Throw my shit in the car, drop by 7-11 and pick up two "tall boys" of Amp, and fight a 'roided-up baseball player outside of Black for a parking space relatively close to Cabell.
After about 30 minutes, the first "tall boy" of Amp is down the hatch. I'm gettin' shaky, since I'm a pretty small kid and I hadn't eaten all day anyway thanks to the stomach flu. It's not that great. I've got the sweats, I'm trudging along on this project I'm half-assing anyway, and life is just not good. I'm throwing it together at the last minute, and nothing is going right (read: no technology in Cabell works, ever) so I'm not in the best mood as it is.
2:15am passes. 3am passes. I'm halfway into the second "tall boy" and I'm relatively positive that my heart will stop before the sun rises. Oh, and for the record? Yes. I watched the sun rise from the 4th floor of Cabell. It was the least romantic EVER.
Oh, so the point of this story.
I may or may not have almost committed a hate crime. Yeah. That's right.
So I'm a Jewish lesbian, right? I'm almost positive that nothing I do can ever ever be a hate crime. By definition. Plus I'm at easily the most diverse university in Virginia. There is nothing even a little bit actually racist about me. Usually.
There was an Asian guy in the workstation cubicle across from mine. These workstations are attached, but there are walls separating them all from each other. I'm sure you know the type if you've been to a library ever. Anyway, the only reason it's important to know he was Asian is because I'm pretty sure the security guard on duty at Cab at that point in the evening hates me anyway so he would automatically suspect that I'm in a white power gang. Oh and also that I'm a raging racist. And committing a hate crime.
So I'm sitting there, 3:30am, and the dude across from me has been kicking at/jolting/generally shaking the workstations for over an hour at this point. I'm going a little nuts, and I'm also behaving like what I'd imagine someone coming down off of meth acts when they care about their university grades and have a final due in a few hours that they have no chance of completing successfully. It came to the point where I slammed my pencil down, took out my iPod headphones and untangled myself from the web of cords leading the various electronics I needed to survive the evening. I took a few ragged deep breaths and restrained myself just enough not to stomp my way around the bay of workstations over to his side.
"Look, I'm trying to finish this stupid project and you're making it impossible to draw a straight line," I managed through gritted teeth when I arrived at his station.
It was then that I noticed the signs I couldn't through peeking at him over the top of the dividers. The twitch, the tics... Ah, shit, I thought to myself. This kid has Tourette's. I blinked a few times, nodded to myself, and slinked back to my side of the bay.
I was about to jack that kid in the face. And it would have been a double-hate crime. I'm an awful person.
Oh, and the project ended up being really sub-par. I made up for it in the oral presentation part of it, but only because I'm uncomfortably funny to socially inept art school ret--I mean, students. It comes to my attention I may need to be more sensitive to those with handicaps some time sooner rather than later.
Seriously, Julia.
Fail Factor: 9.1
Friday, May 8, 2009
Why vending machines are sneaky monkey fighters
So it's currently 1:08am in my office, and I am at work for a variety of reasons. No one really cares or wants to know what those reasons are, and I also don't really care about them for a variety of other reasons I also don't care to share, so we'll skip ahead to my current 1:10am gripe about life.
Late nights at work have caused me to rediscover what I like to consider my version of Adderol. In college, an all nighter in the library almost certainly meant that I would pregame at 7-11. Buying what, you might ask. Coffee? Soda? Questionable prescription drugs from one of the skeevers outside? If you think the answer to one of these three common GW purchases is "yes", then you are sorely mistaken my friends. My study drugs are Combos and Lunchables.
Nothing makes the sweet sounds of Utilitarian political theory stick inside your frazzled strung out finals brain stick quite like the glorious taste of a buttery round cracker filled with fake cheese (how do they get that in there?). And at 6:15am when you're in the basement of Gelman library and you've just listened to "Everything" by Michael Buble approximately 327.4 times (the 0.4 is b/c you just pressed replay, AGAIN), and you know exactly which point in the song to switch back to internet explorer to see the girl wearing the white shirt and black tie shake it with the microphone, nothing makes tears you away from the hotness of Michael Buble's voice and refocus on writing two more pages about the geography of international agriculture exports quite like a Lunchable. My friend from the gym firmly believes that they are fake crackers, cheese, and turkey. False. Real crackers, something even more glorious than a combo filling, and protein. Can't go wrong.
So while I had unlimited access to 7-11 in college (it was in my building, problem #1), I do not in fact have access to 7-11 while I am working late at night. In fact, the only things I have access to are vending machines. And the vending machine on my floor sucks. A lot. It has wronged me twice in the past 3 weeks. Wrong #1: I scraped up $1.25 for a Reeses' peanut butter cup package. And by scraped up, I literally actually mean that I poured all of the change out of my Carlo Rossi (you heard me) wine jug in my office and sifted through the pennies in search of a glimpse of silver. Then I emptied out my purse, considered the merits of shaping a paper clip into a quarter, and crawled around on the floor until I found another $0.25. Then, pleased with my money finding abilities, promptly marched off to the vending machine in search of Reeses'. I needed my chocolate fix so badly that I could barely see straight by the time I got there. Shaking, I put my $1.25 in the slot, and what happened? Crank, crank, spin, spin, stop. That monkey fighting Reeses' was dangling off the edge of that Monday to Friday vending machine. It was like the ultimate rejection. It was like if you make a date with a guy you've liked for months to meet at a bar and he tells you he'll be there in 5 minutes, then he shows up in 5 minutes with another girl and proceeds to ask "who are you" when you try to slap him across the face. In fact, it's worse than that. The other girl slaps you first. So at this point, I can barely stand and I have to feel my way out of the kitchen and crawl back to my office so broken in despair and withdrawal from chocolate that I spent all my change on, and scrounge up another $1.25. I don't remember how I got the $1.25 b/c everything was so dark and fuzzy at that time in my life, but I made it back, 2 steps ahead of a vulture looking for a 2 for 1 Reeses' special, and out spat 2 glorious orange pieces of the promised land. I made it back to my desk and proceeded to eat all six cups, and get caught licking the inside of the wrapper. Wrong #2: As some of you may know, I've been having some serious blood sugar dramz lately. That scheiste drops, and I'm down for the count. And there's no warning. It's like 60 to 0 in 2.4, and pretty soon I'm passed out on the floor of my office wondering why my brain feels like it's sitting next to my body and not in it. So since apparently doctors can't see you until 1.5 months from the time you call them, I've been rectifying these dramz with sugar. Now this morning (and you should have figured this out by the fact that I'm still at work at 1:34am), I didn't really have time for such nonsense. I marched my tush off to the trusty vending machine and opted for Mike and Ike's, b/c I figured that was maximum sugar minimum time, and I wasn't craving chocolate. Put in my dollar, and the same effing thing happens. It dangles on the edge. Are you effing kidding me? And there wasn't even another package behind it that would have made it worth it. But I needed the sugar so I went back to my office, got another dollar, and proceeded to eat what was then a $2.00 snack sized back of Mike and Ike's. Not happy.
So that brings me to tonight. What I really need right now is a big ole bag of Combos (totes just accidently typed condoms). But since I don't have one of those, I settled for whatever the vending machine brought. Tonight that happened to be Veggie Crisps (solid offering). However, this is probably the first time I've ever been to the vending machine sans crisis. Crisis being the immediate need of chocolate for my ship to sail, or the immediate need of sugar for my ship not to sink. Which meant that I noticed the post-it note on the outside. "DO NOT EAT THE ALMOND JOY OR TAKE 5. THEY EXPIRED IN '07".
Where do I begin with this? First of all, who buys Almond Joy or Take 5 bars and has the time to look at the expiration date without shoving it down their throats first? If I'm buying chocolate from that bad boy, I don't have time to worry about expiration dates before I've already eaten the whole thing. Second of all, there are much better choices in that vending machine than either of those. Like, idk, everything else? They probably expired in '07 because no one has ever purchased one. And when one of those two vile excuses for chocolate has turned up to be expired, why would you buy the other one? Why, if you're eating out of a vending machine, do you even look at the date in the first place? Do you check the serial number too, just in case it's been recalled? I just don't accept this. At all. I mean, thanks for the heads up, but if I need chocolate, and Almond Joy (shudder) is the only thing in there, post-it note and expiration date or not, I will eat it.
Back to work. And my veggie chips have newly rejuvenated me.
Late nights at work have caused me to rediscover what I like to consider my version of Adderol. In college, an all nighter in the library almost certainly meant that I would pregame at 7-11. Buying what, you might ask. Coffee? Soda? Questionable prescription drugs from one of the skeevers outside? If you think the answer to one of these three common GW purchases is "yes", then you are sorely mistaken my friends. My study drugs are Combos and Lunchables.
Nothing makes the sweet sounds of Utilitarian political theory stick inside your frazzled strung out finals brain stick quite like the glorious taste of a buttery round cracker filled with fake cheese (how do they get that in there?). And at 6:15am when you're in the basement of Gelman library and you've just listened to "Everything" by Michael Buble approximately 327.4 times (the 0.4 is b/c you just pressed replay, AGAIN), and you know exactly which point in the song to switch back to internet explorer to see the girl wearing the white shirt and black tie shake it with the microphone, nothing makes tears you away from the hotness of Michael Buble's voice and refocus on writing two more pages about the geography of international agriculture exports quite like a Lunchable. My friend from the gym firmly believes that they are fake crackers, cheese, and turkey. False. Real crackers, something even more glorious than a combo filling, and protein. Can't go wrong.
So while I had unlimited access to 7-11 in college (it was in my building, problem #1), I do not in fact have access to 7-11 while I am working late at night. In fact, the only things I have access to are vending machines. And the vending machine on my floor sucks. A lot. It has wronged me twice in the past 3 weeks. Wrong #1: I scraped up $1.25 for a Reeses' peanut butter cup package. And by scraped up, I literally actually mean that I poured all of the change out of my Carlo Rossi (you heard me) wine jug in my office and sifted through the pennies in search of a glimpse of silver. Then I emptied out my purse, considered the merits of shaping a paper clip into a quarter, and crawled around on the floor until I found another $0.25. Then, pleased with my money finding abilities, promptly marched off to the vending machine in search of Reeses'. I needed my chocolate fix so badly that I could barely see straight by the time I got there. Shaking, I put my $1.25 in the slot, and what happened? Crank, crank, spin, spin, stop. That monkey fighting Reeses' was dangling off the edge of that Monday to Friday vending machine. It was like the ultimate rejection. It was like if you make a date with a guy you've liked for months to meet at a bar and he tells you he'll be there in 5 minutes, then he shows up in 5 minutes with another girl and proceeds to ask "who are you" when you try to slap him across the face. In fact, it's worse than that. The other girl slaps you first. So at this point, I can barely stand and I have to feel my way out of the kitchen and crawl back to my office so broken in despair and withdrawal from chocolate that I spent all my change on, and scrounge up another $1.25. I don't remember how I got the $1.25 b/c everything was so dark and fuzzy at that time in my life, but I made it back, 2 steps ahead of a vulture looking for a 2 for 1 Reeses' special, and out spat 2 glorious orange pieces of the promised land. I made it back to my desk and proceeded to eat all six cups, and get caught licking the inside of the wrapper. Wrong #2: As some of you may know, I've been having some serious blood sugar dramz lately. That scheiste drops, and I'm down for the count. And there's no warning. It's like 60 to 0 in 2.4, and pretty soon I'm passed out on the floor of my office wondering why my brain feels like it's sitting next to my body and not in it. So since apparently doctors can't see you until 1.5 months from the time you call them, I've been rectifying these dramz with sugar. Now this morning (and you should have figured this out by the fact that I'm still at work at 1:34am), I didn't really have time for such nonsense. I marched my tush off to the trusty vending machine and opted for Mike and Ike's, b/c I figured that was maximum sugar minimum time, and I wasn't craving chocolate. Put in my dollar, and the same effing thing happens. It dangles on the edge. Are you effing kidding me? And there wasn't even another package behind it that would have made it worth it. But I needed the sugar so I went back to my office, got another dollar, and proceeded to eat what was then a $2.00 snack sized back of Mike and Ike's. Not happy.
So that brings me to tonight. What I really need right now is a big ole bag of Combos (totes just accidently typed condoms). But since I don't have one of those, I settled for whatever the vending machine brought. Tonight that happened to be Veggie Crisps (solid offering). However, this is probably the first time I've ever been to the vending machine sans crisis. Crisis being the immediate need of chocolate for my ship to sail, or the immediate need of sugar for my ship not to sink. Which meant that I noticed the post-it note on the outside. "DO NOT EAT THE ALMOND JOY OR TAKE 5. THEY EXPIRED IN '07".
Where do I begin with this? First of all, who buys Almond Joy or Take 5 bars and has the time to look at the expiration date without shoving it down their throats first? If I'm buying chocolate from that bad boy, I don't have time to worry about expiration dates before I've already eaten the whole thing. Second of all, there are much better choices in that vending machine than either of those. Like, idk, everything else? They probably expired in '07 because no one has ever purchased one. And when one of those two vile excuses for chocolate has turned up to be expired, why would you buy the other one? Why, if you're eating out of a vending machine, do you even look at the date in the first place? Do you check the serial number too, just in case it's been recalled? I just don't accept this. At all. I mean, thanks for the heads up, but if I need chocolate, and Almond Joy (shudder) is the only thing in there, post-it note and expiration date or not, I will eat it.
Back to work. And my veggie chips have newly rejuvenated me.
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