Oh my, I haven’t blogged properly since before Christmas! Well, speedy update: Christmas happened. So did the new year! Amazing! XD I got many fantastic gifts for Christmas and have already begun getting awesome birthday gifts; the former tended towards games and DVDs and the latter, thus far, is tending towards clothes. Both of these things are excellent! I do, in fact, desire clothes for gift-associated holidays. Most specifically, I got excellent winter garb of the fashionable, comfortable, long-lasting sort that I have wanted for a number of years, and I look fabulous in it (and am warm in it, a delightful plus). Since the New England winter is approximate a half year long, I often desire warm, comfortable winter garb. Now I have it. Joy and delight!

RE: the Mongolian Death Flu: I have mostly recovered, thank goodness, although I was seriously considering a visit to a doctor of some kind right before it started improving. For all my hypochondria, I usually ignore anything other than near-death, so to actually consider a doctor visit rather implies a state of extremely poor health. There was difficulty breathing, almost constant fevers, and a daily analysis of the color of what I was coughing up. And of course the lovely day when my left sinus decided to evacuate large quantities of nuclear waste. Anyhow! The good part of being so ill is that I kept forgetting to eat (and also kept being asleep) and thus lost 5 pounds.

It is a new year, and it’s looking good so far. I am wearing fake nails that have pink argyle tips (yes you read that right), I have clothes that fit and render me feminine in appearance, I am warm and fed, people love me, and I love certain people (and a certain cat, although I suspect my place in her affections is decreasing). I am going to college and doing splendidly at it (I officially have a 3.48 GPA now, which makes me rage because it is simply .02 too low), my debt is not increasing, I have been reasonably good at keeping in touch with friends and family, and I am confident in the path I am setting for myself. It has been a better year than I ever thought possible when it began.

I want to sleep but lying down makes breathing hard. ;_;

Bread has not occurred, mostly because yeast hates me. Le sigh. I will get more yeast this weekend and try again.
In other news, I started cleaning the living room! Mostly just reorganizing it, but eh. Technicalities. I got the tree up and am fluffing its ugly plastic branches in preparation for the decorating, which shall occur sometime between now and Christmas. Probably tomorrow. XD It is ridiculous that only two hours of physical labor has left me trembling like a newborn fawn. Same thing yesterday, too. Hopefully this month off will toughen me up a bit, and then when I get back to college I really will go to the gym regularly. Amusingly, I hate being weak more than I hate being fat, so this will probably actually work as impetus.

Home! Was immediately besieged by tales of woe and horror, but managed to take a deep breath and let it go. They are not my problems, there is nothing I can do about it, offering a support role is more than I can handle. Instead, I will clean. Most of it is being put off until next week, but I already encouraged Dad to clean the fridge (I helped) and was pleasantly surprised at how little stuff was on the dining room table. Today the upstairs bathroom will be scrubbed, although it also appears quite clean. It’s just a matter of the tub and replacing the shower curtain and rod, for which we already have replacements. So, easy peasy lemon squeezy. :D I woke up too late to bake bread, alas. I will set my alarm tomorrow. I will be making Celebration Bread in the shape of a wreath, and I suspect I will in fact make several wreaths, at least one of which will become a Christmas present for Shan’s family. He liked to make them think I couldn’t cook. HA. HAVE A BREAD WREATH. God, why am I still trying to prove myself to them.

Do not say the word “Calculus” to me anytime in the forseeable future.

Part one: If you get a plane from home to Philly on Jan 20, let’s say 5:30am, it lasts 1:30 so you get there at 7am. That costs about $80. Then you take the subway from the airport to 30th St Station ($4).

Option one: At that station you get on a 9:00 Amtrak train ($28, 1:40) to Harrisburg where you walk two blocks over to the RabbitTransit stop on 5th and Market where you get on the 3pm (ARGH - Greyhound has one leaving at 11, but only if I flash military ID beforehand) express bus to York ($3.50, 1:25) where you take the 3B route to college (< $2), possibly getting back at 4-5pm. Total cost: $120ish. Possible extra fees with the airport. Cons: sitting in a strange city for 4 hours.

Option two: Take the blue line to 8th St station, get on an 8:20am bus ($5-24, 3:20) straight to York, where you walk down George St (away from the river), right on Philadelphia St, left on N.Pershing, don’t get shot. At the Rabbit transfer station, take bus 3B (at 11:45 or 12:45) to college (< $2), arrive around 1pm. Total cost: $92-110. Cons: walking in York, possibly walking in Philly.

Done entertaining myself for the night. XD Now to sleep, so that in the morning I will get up bright and early and have breakfast and refresh my memory on Bio and take some finals. My cheat sheet for Calc is as good as I can get it, my love for Bio rekindled (I am thinking my panic over a major could be solved by majoring in Bio and minoring in Wildlife Ecology) and my confidence in myself restored. Wish me luck. I will definitely need it.

Alright! Part 1 of finals is done, also marking the end of classes proper. I did my Writing presentation about my public genre project which was based on the results of the paper I wrote that I did the survey for. …It bothers me that I ended that sentence with a preposition, but the humor value outweighs the grammatical correctness. Anyway! I get a bit of a break now. After dinner I will begin studying for my Bio lab practical, which happens tomorrow at 1:30. Then I get two days of studying, in which I will re-teach myself as much Calculus as possible from the book Dad got me with wizards and stuff. Yes. I know. You don’t have to make fun of me, I am doing quite enough of that myself. But basically right now I am not thinking past tomorrow. Note to self: get a transcript sent to UNH. Do that after the practical tomorrow. Write a note on your hand or something.

Oh my gaaaawd I want this coat. So much. I cannot express. DO WANT.

Rest of the entry went emo very suddenly. Summary: I do not know what to do with my life and I think what I am currently doing with it is a huge mistake but don’t know what would be right.

P.S. COAT. WANT. I do not own a proper coat and have not since I was ten. Maaan there is so much stuff I want for Christmas. I like stuff. Stuff is fun to have.

I have been quietly working on my application to UNH for a while now - for once I’m being good and getting the additional materials done. I have to do them now - I want them sent out before January, and they’re stuff from YCP, so yeah. I just got the official thingy saying that I have no disciplinary record and I haven’t been around long enough for a GPA and no one in the academic offices knows me. :D Yay! And I have my two best teachers doing recommendations for me, and then it’s just transcripts and the application itself, which is easy peasy. There’s no actual essay when you’re a transfer, just a tidbit about work and stuff. It’s 250 words or less, if I recall. The real challenge there is limiting myself to 250 words… XD So once finals are done I will do that, and probably do the transcript from here before then (but later than tomorrow, because I have to write a paper now).

So my schedule from now on looks like this: tomorrow I skip the Archery class I’m not actually in, finish the InfLit paper (two pages pffft I don’t know why this is such a huge deal to me), go to InfLit and pass it in. Friday I go to classes and begin studying, also make slides for Writing presentation. Weekend is studying. Monday I go to classes, do my presentation in Writing. Tuesday I skip Archery again and do my Bio lab practical at 1:30pm, then Inflit class in the evening.  Wednesday is Reading Day so no classes: study more. Thursday might be an Inflit final, if not then more studying. Friday is Bio final at 8am, Calc final at 10:15am, and then I am done! Theoretically. I may have to attend the Writing “final” the following Monday, which is just more presentations. The teacher is checking my grade to see if I can get away with missing it - there will be an attendance points deduction, but it shouldn’t be significant.

Speaking of significant points, I figured out that I only need a 50 on my final to pass Calc. Unless passing is a C, in which case I need something like a 78. (Don’t ask me how that works.) I got a 58 on my midterm, but I’m totally prepared this time! Or, well, more determined and less cavalier. I want to start studying now but I need to do this paper. Sigh. My cheat sheet will have the tiniest handwriting known to man…

Note to self: You can donate blood again on Jan 28th, and also your blood is SUPER SPESHUL OMG so make sure you do it regularly from now on. Seriously, write it on the calendar. Saving the lives of immuno-compromised people with the rarest blood type in the world is AWESOME. You are like Dr. House if Dr. House were a female college student who didn’t care about medical science. And also a real person.

Oh my, it’s been busy. Went home (thank you Dad!), made Thanksgiving dinner, cleaned, got other people to clean (sometimes by virtue of my presence alone), spent time with friends and family, got a FREAKING AWESOME early Christmas present from Steph, went to a midnight Black Friday sale (and bought nothing, ha), snuggled my cat until my allergies kicked in, came back to college (thank you again Dad!), did my public genre thing for Writing, got my bird flu paper back, got the hold taken off my registration, registered for classes, was not crushed with disappointment when Sign Language was closed, was also not crushed by the lack of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (I think this might be a lie), and now am perfecting my public genre thing and working on my InfLit paper.

So yes, I got my bird flu paper back. I got an A, which was pleasing but not a surprise. I was a bit surprised that he didn’t find anything wrong with it. Like, at all. Lots of notes but they were all compliments. I think maybe I sucked up too much? But anyway, that was very nice.

It’s so hectic I haven’t had time yet to freak about finals. Just too much going on. I made up a nice calendar on Google Calendars to keep track of next semester’s schedule. And then I put up my friends’ schedules. :D For once I will know where people are! I am terrible at noticing patterns like that. People just come and go randomly, as far as I know.

The “public genre” thing is cool, although still unfinished: you can see what’s up so far at Bird Flu Will Kill You (Maybe).