Thanks Eeyore...

Thanks for having such great quotes that accurately capture my mood today.


"One can't complain. I have my friends. Someone spoke to me only yesterday."


"Nobody tells me. Nobody keeps me Informed. I make it seventeen days come Friday since anybody spoke to me."
"It certainly isn't seventeen days - "
"Come Friday," explained Eeyore.
"And today's Saturday," said Rabbit.

Camera

Okay, well instead of doing work this morning, I've been looking online at cameras. I've found a camera that I think I really like, the Olympus C-765. It's got 10X optical zoom (compared to 3X on my current camera) and I can control the shutter speed which is good for lightning pictures. The problem with it is it is bigger than my current camera. So I don't think it's really good for just throwing in my purse when we go out. So I don't know. I guess I'll go to best buy later and check it out. See how big it really is. Okay, back to work.

Animals, IDs, and my weekend

Okay, well, I'm getting tired of animals. Rapidly. Each day brings me closer to the edge. Hopefully taking Callie home will make a difference. We'll see.
Callie's at the vet today getting checked out. She's doing lots better. I'm gonna miss her, she's a good cat.

I got whataburger for breakfast this morning and paid with Aggie Bucks, and they didn't give me my ID back. *sigh*

My professor gave me my revised proposal back today. So next week I'll get it submitted and step 1 will be complete! (well, step 2 I guess if you count finishing classes as step 1)

I'm going home this weekend for a very busy weekend. I have to go dance clothes shopping for Pom squad try-outs (goal: to find pants that don't make me look fat...no, I don't really think I'm fat, but for the dance team thing, I kinda think I am). I have to take pictures for try-outs. Danny and I are meeting with the minister. Danny and I have to go pick out his tux. Melanie, Erin, and Amy are having a birthday gathering. I have to go shopping for my headpiece for the wedding since my pictures are in a month. I need to go looking for a new camera. *sigh* So yeah, that's my weekend in a nutshell. Oh, and I have to be back in CS by 3 on sunday, so I have to leave Dallas by 11:30 or so. Busy Busy.

I live in a zoo...

Isn't there a song about that? I can kind of hum a tune, but I just can't hash it out. Well, right now, I really do live in a zoo. This week we have 4 animals in our 2 bedroom apartment. 3 cats, 1 puppy. The 3 cats wasn't so bad because Callie was sick for most of the time, and so she just stayed in my room. Now she's feeling better, though, and she's crazy. The puppy is what's throwing it over the edge. The puppy is crazy. That's all. She chews, cause that's what puppies do. She whines, cause she's whiney, and she bites Callie. I feel like I'm playing referee between all these animals. Vesta and Ellie are not very happy about all these animals invading their territory.

Well, at least Callie's going home this weekend. I love that kitty, but she'll be glad to get home. The puppy is here to stay, though. Either Jamie or I will probably adopt her. I have to say I have a few reservations about adopting her. We'll have the next few weeks until she gets closer to adopting age for me to really see. I might take her home this weekend to meet the family. That'll be a huge thing. I'm just not sure I'm prepared for a puppy. Jamie will help for sure (she's quite attached :) ), but it's still a really big responsibility for someone who's never had a real dog. I guess it'll partly depend on how she bonds with people this weekend (if she gets to go), and how the puppy training classes agree with her, and how well she gets crate trained. I'm not sure I could really handle her the way she is now.
Although I do have to say that she's the cutest thing I think I've ever seen.

Puppy Crate Training, Day 1

Okay, so I guess I should start this post with a little background. Jamie and I are currently fostering a 5 week old puppy. We think it's mostly golden retriever, but it's still a little young to tell. There's a good chance this dog will end up being one of ours. Her name is Lily. Let me also say that I've never really had a dog, much less a puppy.

So we've decided to go ahead and start crate training her. From what I hear, this is pretty painful for a few nights, and they were right. Last night was her first night to spend in her crate, and she was pretty unhappy. Jamie got up twice to take her out to pee, and she got upset when she had to get back into the crate. The in between times she's asleep, so she's pretty good. So here I am, it's 6:30 in the morning, I've been up since 5. I'm waiting for her to stop crying so I can take her out of her crate. See, with dogs, aparently, it's all psycological. So if I take her out while she's crying, she'll think she's being rewarded for crying. So here I sit. At least I'm going to get to work early today. I guess. I have to stay up until at least 9, though because that's when my trainer is done. So it's going to be a long day.

Oh! We've had almost a whole minute of silence. 1 more minute and the puppy is free. Cross your fingers.

Pictures of Lily can be found here.

John Stewart

Okay, so I love John Stewart. He has a good summary of the cable news coverage of the Terry Shiavo case here.

Once again, the way the media is covering this, I don't know how anyone can argue, with a straight face, a liberal media bias. I've been fighting people on this issue since I was forced to watch Fox News everyday in 2003 when we invaded Iraq. I've watched CNN, and these people have gone crazy. They are catering to the neocons and it's getting ridiculous.

Does nobody care about real news anymore?

Vote for me!

Oh it's that time of year again. The sun is peaking out from behind it's winter shadows, flowers are starting to bloom, and all over campus people are making asses out of themselves in hopes that you will support their candidate. That's right, it's election time here at Texas A&M. Quite possibly my least favorite time of year. You can't go anywhere without someone telling you to vote for so-and-so, or someone else saying "hey! look at me, I'm funny. That means that you should vote for so-and-so!" Ah yes, perfectly mature college students acting like morons. Why it has to be this way, I'm not sure. I think it has something to do with the fact that we don't seperate our yell leader elections and our student government elections. Who knows.

Summary of my life...

I am again frustrated with the way things are going in College Station.

I have to teach again in an hour.

Instead of working on my thesis this week I've been working on stuff to teach for this darn class.

I get so scared over teaching a silly class to people 2 years younger than I, I'm really afraid of how scared I'm going to be when it comes time to give my seminar to my peers and professors. :(

Turns out I am invited to that wedding after all.

I didn't sleep at all last night.

I think I'm getting sick. Although, I've been thinking that for over a month now, but I really think it's true this time.

I'm going to Austin to look at houses on saturday. Danny's looking today to get a head start.

I have to give Callie back to my sister next weekend. That makes me sad. :( I want a kitten of my own.

I finally worked out again last night. I ran on the track at the gym, and I ran a whole mile pretty easily. Not very fast, but a mile all the same.

I'm really tired, and I'll probably leave work early for the 4th day in a row. Maybe I'll get some work on my thesis done, though.

Okay, that's all for now. I'm tired, might rest my head on my desk for a few minutes...

Stick a fork in me...

Well, I just got done teaching, and what did I learn? That however long I think it's going to take to teach something, it's probably going to take half that long. Ask me how much of an hour and fifteen minute class I spent teaching? Go ahead. Okay, 20 minutes! WTF!!! I suck. I'm a bad teacher. *sigh* Now I have to search for some math problems to do on thursday so I can teach for more than 20 minutes. :-/

Breathe

Okay, so in exactly one hour I have to teach a senior level cloud physics class because my professor is at a conference. Now, for some reason, I get really freaked out when I have to teach. No matter what I feel completely unprepared. This stinks because next fall I'm going to have to TA again. I just don't know. I really need to get over this. I think I would be good at teaching math. Math is good, you can write math stuff on the board, talk about it, and work problems. That's all good. Today I have to teach about lightning. First, I have to talk about some boring history stuff. My delimma is what do I write on the board? This stuff probably won't be covered, so should I write anything on the board? I don't want to just stand there and talk, though. Then, I have to talk about the basics of lightning. That's a little better. I have an overhead that I can try to discuss. Then, I have to discuss the fiar weather electric field. Now this I don't know much about, but once again, I have a figure. Finally, if there's still too much time, I'm going to dive into the thermoelectric effect. This is what I feel most comfortable with. I am hoping to hold that off until the thursday class, but I don't think I have enough material, so we'll see if that happens.
Okay, I am really freaking out. I need to calm down and BREATHE.

Human Rights?

I would just like to point out that as govorner of Texas, Bush signed a law allowing hospitals to pull the plug against a family's wishes if the chance for recovery was non-existent, and the patient could not pay. This is called the Texas Futile Care Law. Just this week a baby was removed from life support against his mothers wishes thanks to this law (ahem...can we say pro-life?). Now Bush is signing a bill to let Congress step in and tell Terri Shiavo's husband what he should do.
Could Bush be any more inconsistent.

Oh wait, I just realized that is consistent. In both cases he's working towards taking the decision away from the family members who are the ones emotionally involved.

According to an ABC poll, 67% of Americans think that congress is just interveining for political gain, and I'd have to say that I agree.

Other notes:
- Republicans have repeatedly voted to abolish medicare funding that would pay for the kind of care that someone like Terri Shiavo needs.
- The tort reform that Bush is pushing to pass would preclude malpractice claims like that which has paid for Terri Shiavo's care thus far.
- The recently passed bankrupty bill will make it more difficult for families who suffer a catastrophic illness like Terry Schiavo's because they will not be able to declare chapter 7 bankruptcy and get a fresh start when the gargantuan medical bills become overwhelming.

So basically what congress and the president is telling us is that we should have no choice in the fate of our loved one, and we should be screwed into the ground when it comes to paying for this fate. Great.

God's Politics

I think this looks like an interesting book. It discusses how religious beliefs intercept political beliefs. It's subtitled "Why the right gets it wrong and the left doesn't get it." I think that sums it up pretty well. Anyway, I think it looks like a good book. Especailly for people who think that Christian == Republican.
You can read the first chapter here.

This is a paragraph written about it from this site.
"God's Politics offers a clarion call to make both our religious communities and our government more accountable to key values of the prophetic religious tradition - that is, make them pro-justice, pro-peace, pro-environment, pro-equality, pro-consistent ethic of life (beyond single issue voting), and pro-family (without making scapegoats of single mothers or gays and lesbians). These are the values of love and justice, reconciliation, and community that Jesus taught and that are at the core of what many of us believe, Christian or not."

Some good times

Okay, so aside from all the drama, I really have had a good week. Wednesday we went and played pool. That was a good time. Although I had no intentions of it, I got pretty drunk. Then thursday night Jamie and I ended up having a St. Patrick's day party. We played hours of flippy cup. I think I love that game. I managed to get mildly drunk that night too. Then last night I went over to Chrissy's for her birthday. We just hung out, and once again, I got a little drunk. I think I've drank more in this past week than I did the rest of the semester. It's okay though cause it's spring break.
I had been feeling pretty lost in the department. I felt like I didn't fit in anywhere anymore. Dave had left, and I was feeling like he was the only person here who really cared (besides Jamie, of course). This past week though I feel like that has changed. I'm feeling alot closer to people, and I've had a really good time. I'm more optimistic about my last few months here.

You read this?

Okay, so I learned that some people actually read this thing. I always assumed that nobody really cared enough to read this. So that makes me feel awefully exposed. I don't know why. I think I just like to pretend nobody reads this.
I was looking over my recent posts and realized that there's alot of bitching happening. So my goal today is to think of something good that's happened this week and write about it.

More mean people

So I really want to post, but I just don't know what to say. So much has happened recently I don't know where to start, or if it's ready to be posted. I guess I just want to know how someone can hurt someone's feelings and not even care. I'll start with this story I suppose.
We had a prospective student come in town this week to visit the department. We'll call him Charlie. Whenever a prospective comes, the grad students take them out to do various things. We made the mistake of letting Charlie go out with one particular grad student (lets call him Bob). Bob is always making gay jokes and comments. Well, as it turns out, Charlie is gay, and was extremely offended by Bob's actions.
So now, instead of feeling bad for acting this way and hurting Charlie's feelings, several grad student have taken to making fun of the kid instead. They've judged him and laughed that Charlie is Catholic, because in their opinion it's impossible to be any sort of Christian and be gay. They say they're offended that he's offended. I just don't understand. Bob student feels absolutely no remorse and doesn't see any reason why he might need to reevaluate his actions, and a couple other students have taken to defending him. (Interestingly one of those students is the Mean Christian I posted about earlier. (When I posted I made it plural because everyone this guy hangs out with are just as mean). This guy just keeps proving me more and more right about him. He fails to see how making fun of people who are gay is the same thing as making fun of people who are black or whatever.
I can't wait for the day where people can accept people for who they are. I doubt it will come any time soon, but hopefully it will come in my lifetime. Homosexuals are people too. They have feelings just like you and me. I just wish people would take a minute to consider other people before they pass judgement. I'm tired of people using religion as a reason to hate other people. This is what has pushed me so far from religion recently. In my opinion religion should be something that brings people together, not tears them apart. That's why I've become so interested in Unitarianism.
Okay, that's all.

Quiz

I gotta say, this is pretty much the order I would expect. Maybe socialism above anarchism. And definately green over that, but still.

You scored as Democrat. <'Imunimaginative's Deviantart Page'> Democrat 100% Anarchism 75% Green 58% Socialist 50% Communism 42% Republican 8% Nazi 0% Fascism 0% What Political Party Do Your Beliefs Put You In? created with QuizFarm.com

Frustration

Our government makes me sick. I'm tired of them selling out the environment and education. I'm tired of most of the American people not really having any clue of what gets voted on each day. I'm tired of it. I'm frustrated. I would be willing to guess that at least half the people who voted for Bush don't have a clue as to what his real agenda is. Doubtful that they even really took time to look into his policy. They just assumed he was the moral choice, when really that couldn't have been farther from the truth. Looking at his history shows no real morality. Just a trend of selling out the american people to further corporate interests. ARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Who's side are those republicans on?

So I was doing my skimming through the votes in the Senate, and I came across this one.

An amendment to the budget who's purpose is to:
"To restore funding for education programs that are cut and reduce debt by closing corporate tax loopholes."

This was turned down 44-47 with only 3 republicans (Chafee-RI, Coleman-MN, Devine-OH) voting for it.

Come on. Fund education?!?! CUT corporate tax loopholes. Man, these people really aren't for the corporations, they are DEFINATELY for the people. (once again...sarcastic tone)


Oh, and then there's this vote:

Another amendment to the budget to:
"To protect the American people from terrorist attacks by providing the necessary resources to our firefighters, police, EMS workers and other first-responders by restoring $1,626 billion in cuts to first-responder programs."

This one was turned down 46-54 with only 1 republican (Chafee-RI) voting for it.

Man, the party that lays claim to fixing terrorism sure is doing a great job here at home.

Great Depression

Is Bush's agenda of supporting Big Buisiness and pushing the burden onto the American people similar to what happend in the 1920's? Have we been down this road before?

Arctic Wildlife Refuge

Here's a story about some of the possible damages that can be caused my drilling (or "exploring") for oil in the Arctic wildlife refuge.

Most of this stuff I have studied in various classes. It's not made up, and it's not an exaggeration.

I am definately for reducing our dependance on foreign oil, but I think we should do it by developing new technologies, reducing our dependence on oil period. Not by ruining a pristine natural habitat.