Epic Fail

Well, I've already failed at BEDA. Sorry. I feel shame at this, but will continue to attempt frequent updates here... because perhaps then I can atone for this failure? We'll see.
So yesterday was officially the worst day of the semester, and possibly my entire college career as it exists at a length of 1.5 semesters. The story goes like this. (There is actually quite a bit of backstory to this that is necessary to explain why this was the worst day ever, so please bear with me.)
So spring break was last week, and as I have previously mentioned this was very fun. I had a great time. Over spring break I had quite a lot of work to do in the form of reading and writing papers, and I diligently hauled about 50 pounds worth of books out to Colorado with me so that I could diligently accomplish my works. However, all I really used the books for was endurance training as I hauled them up several flights of stairs to get them into our apartment for the week, and then back down again as we left.
This meant that at the beginning of this week I was faced with completing four papers by Friday. I was still confident. I had plenty of time. On Tuesday I woke up early and wrote the first one, which was a wise choice on my part because it was due at 11:00 later that morning. So no problem. The next paper wasn't due until Thursday afternoon, and the last two weren't due until Friday.
So I took a break. I watched some television, watched some movies. I painted a few pictures. And this brings us to Wednesday night, when I was starting to feel a bit twitchy. I did some mental math and realized that I needed to write 10 pages of writing within two days. "Okay," I said to myself. "You can do this. You don't have class tomorrow. You can just write all day." After which I promptly stayed up until two in the morning watching more television. Good thinking, right?
On Thursday, the epic day of writing, I did start out well enough. I finished one paper by noon, and another by 2:30. "Look at that!" I said. "I'm doing amazingly well! I only have one paper left! This will be easy!" What I did not tell myself was that the paper that I had left until the end was a 5-page paper tying Hegel's and Rousseau's philosophy on societies into the utopian societies presented by Swift and Voltaire. I'm really good at ignoring the elephant in the room.
And so, yet again, I took a break. I watched some television, watched some movies. I dithered around on the internet. I went to the library under the pretense of picking up research books and looked at DVDs instead. I chatted with friends online. This continued until 10:30 that night, at which point my current situation hit me in the face like a brick. I might have hyperventilated a bit.
"Okay," I said to myself. "Stay calm. Start writing." And I did. I wrote and read and wrote some more, and it went pretty well until two in the morning, at which point my brain said, "Nuhuh. I'm done," and put up its away message, which goes something like this, "I want to take you to the gay bar, gay bar, gay bar..." Not very helpful, so the plan at that point became getting up early in the morning and writing my introduction and conclusion before going to class. Cue worst day ever.
My alarm goes off at 7:30. I am angry. I punch it off. I go back to sleep. At 8:30, I wake up, freak out, and run to take a shower. There is water on the floor (so strange in a shower, right?) I slip. My ankle hurts very badly now. I am angry. I rush to finish my paper, and am only able to write my introduction before having to go to class to turn in another paper. "Okay," I say to myself. "I will finish the conclusion over my lunch hour. No problem." I go to pick up the completed paper from the printer... which is inexplicably not working. Great. I run to the honors house (I'm now running late for class) so that I can print my paper out and turn it in. But wait... I have no stapler. We can't turn papers in unless the sheets are attached to each other. Crap. But wait, I do have a paper clip! Crisis averted. (This is a lot more epic when it's all going down as I'm running to class on my badly hurting ankle, trust me.) Paper is turned in. All is well. I rush back to my room so that I can finish my last paper. As I am running up the stairs, my very angry ankle chooses this moment to go on strike and I plummet to the ground and slide down several stairs. I am angry. I finish my paper anyway. As I run to the printer (pleaseletitbeworkingnowpleaseletitbeworkingnow), my ankle inexplicably knows that I am once again unwisely running on the stairs and gives out. I plummet down the stairs again, this time with witnesses. I am angry. My ankle is angry. My stomach is angry because I haven't eaten anything today. It is a very angry day.
(The conclusion of this story involves me turning in my paper (properly stapled) and returning to my room to fall asleep, pajamas and all, only to forget that I have an engagement at 3:00, of which I am reminded when I receive a call asking me if I am at the Union. Commence further running.)

Blog Every Day in April

So...
As the title suggests, this is the (slightly early) beginning of Blog Every Day in April (or BEDA), where I shall attempt to write a blog post every day. Initiated by author Maureen Johnson (who happens to write hilarious and highly entertaining blog posts), BEDA is supposed to be an exercise in writing consisantly (sort of like NaNoWriMo). Her explanation of the event boils down to learning to write even when you don't have anything to say. I don't have issue witht this. I think I'm quite capable of coming up with something to say every day for thirty days. What I doubt about myself is my ability to REMEMBER to write them down here. But I'm going to try. Really really hard.
It is Monday, and I am back at school. I spent the last week in Summit County, Colorado, which is kind of like the Mecca of skiing in the Rockies. Summit County contains Copper Mountain, Keystone, Breckinridge, Arapahoe Basin (my personal favorite- where I learned to ski and, until recently, the purveyor of the highest lift service in the Rockies), Loveland and likely a large number of others that I am omitting through gross oversight. Sorry. I spent this ski trip at Copper Mountain, which is a very nice ski resort witht the best village I've stayed in and a very large range of trails and terrain. It snowed EVERY SINGLE DAY that my family and I were there for a total of 23 inches of snowfall. 23 inches! The skiing was fantastic, but in order to stand the weather conditions I had to be completely covered in protective snowgear. Only the tip of my nose was left free of covering in order to allow me to breathe, and sometimes this didn't suffice and I would have to pull my mask down from my face a gasp for air. This results in a lot of awkward looks from the other skiers, but it's okay. It's part of Colorado's charm.
Like I said, I am now back at school. In an attempt to get back into my fighting condition I went to the gym this afternoon, but I have yet to discern a noticeable change. (This is an attempt at humor, yes?) I suspect that I will be quite sore in the morning despite my extensive post-exercising stretching. My body is really not meant to run for forty minutes. It's sad that the solution to this is to simply go and do it again tomorrow. Curse you, you delicious scones. Curse you.

We're going to party, party...

Birthdays are fun.
Yesterday marked my 19th year upon this good earth, and I must admit that I'm enjoying being back among the land of the prime numbers. Everything feels better when you are divisible only by one and yourself.
The weather was beautiful yesterday, and I had a picnic lunch of sushi and apricots outside on campus. This was very enjoyable until I noticed that evening that I had gotten quite sunburned in the 45 -45!- minutes that I had spent outside. Curse you, my Scandinavian heritage. You have thwarted me once again.
I received lots of birthday wishes yesterday, for which I am grateful, and several new photos and songs of Spring Awakening fandom, which will cheer anyone up. On Friday one of my classmates, who also has a birthday this week, and I are going to celebrate in our discussion section. We haven't notified out TA about this yet, but oh well. It's almost spring break.

Spam!

I always enjoy checking the spam folder of my junk email account. I have two email accounts, one for serious business like school, and another one that I've had since the seventh grade and I use for filling out the email requirement on things like free online IQ tests (I know, I know- you can't really measure intelligence). Needless to say, it doesn't really surprise me when I get seventy or more spam messages a day. I think it's fun to look at the subject lines and see what spammers are trying to lure me in with these days. I am often propositioned to become a nurse or police officer, but I have to admit that I'm concerned about anyone who becomes a nurse or police officer because a spam email told them it would be easy.
Today, while looking at my spam folder (a meager 24 messages, but the day is young) I happened to look at the date the messages were sent. The oldest ones were very expectable- March 17, 2009. But the newest messages had actually been sent from dates like March 20 and March 21. That's right- I've been getting spam messages FROM THE FUTURE. I find this all very exciting. It's like they brought their game to a whole new level, and I've been invited to play along. It's just too bad that the mystery of the dates doesn't keep me from emptying the folder without opening a single message. Keep trying, spammers, keep trying...

Victory!

I got the internship!
I received the email today from the Writer's Workshop congratulating me on my acceptance in the Peer Consultant Program for the 09-10 year. I've been obsessively checking my email all weekend, even though we were only supposed to find out by the end of the week. When I saw that I had an email from the director of the program I was incredibly nervous, because I didn't want to find out if I'd been rejected. Luckily, though, I was in. Immediately after reading the email I acted like a total dork and called my mom. Yeah, I know, not exactly the coolest thing to do, but it was big news and I wanted to tell her. I wish that I could start the program now, but I have to wait until next semester. Sigh... I suppose I really shouldn't be anxious to start more work, but this internship is almost exactly what I want to do for the rest of my life, and I'm really excited to start.

Magical Scones

Scones are delicious.
I really just want to point this out and get it out of my system. One of the late night dining services on campus has absolutely amazing scones. They're so good that I have dreams about them. Seriously.
In other news, it's Friday, which is a good day of the week. It's a busy Friday, as I have a luncheon with the Dean of Honors and an interview for a position in the Writing Workshop, but I'm looking forward to both of these events, so it's okay. And then it will be Saturday, which is my designated day for working on my illustrated book detailing the history of abortion. It will be cheerful, yes? I need the illustrations for a presentation I'm doing for the Undergraduate Research Symposium, which is a really serious sounding name but apparently you're allowed to use drawings in your explanation, so it can't be that serious. However, it may turn out that when I get there I'm the only one who isn't taking this completely seriously and I will look like a fool. At least I'll be a fool with pictures, though.

The Phantom Administrator

This is probably going to be a very short post, because the dining hall just opened and I am very, very hungry.
Having said that, now, I'm probably going to prove myself wrong.
I downloaded Windows Media Player 11 yesterday, and now my music player is all shiny and new. I can now also get my computer to recognize my mp3 player and add new music to it. This is very important, because a friend of mine recently sent me the soundtrack to Spring Awakening, which is an amazing musical that won the Best Musical Tony this year. My friend and I are going to run away to Chicago this summer to see it.
Downloading the music player has been about the only thing that has gone well with my computer lately. A week or two ago it started up with the blue screen of death, which caused me great anguish and made me torment the other dorm residents with my wails of anguish. It recovered, though, and started, but from that point on a small bubble has been popping up on my screen saying, "Your computer is infected! It is recommended to start spyware cleaner tool." The first time I saw this I was genuinely alarmed until I clicked on the bubble and it took me a website in order to purchase anti-spyware software. I said no. "No to scamming trojans!" (That was me.)
But from that point on the bubble has refused to disappear, and it repeatedly makes this little, "I have appeared noise!" even though it's there all the time. And, from time to time, an Internet Explorer window will randomly open on my computer with about 1175023500 tabs that I must individually click closed before I can close the window. And sometimes my computer will tell me it is shutting down, and that the administrator has authorized this. Now, this sounds legitimate, but I happen to have it on good authority that I am the administrator for my computer, and I authorized no such action. This mysterious administrator has also made impossible to change my desktop, and he has disabled the task manager. Whenever I try to access it an angry little box says, "This function has been disabled by the administrator." No! It hasn't been! I am the administrator! It's not disabled! Help!
In good news, however, I have applied to a peer consultant program with the university's Writing Workshop. If I'm accepted I get to work for independent credit helping other students with thier papers. After I work there for a year I can even get paid for it!
That at least, is exciting. The haunted computer, not so much. But it does keep me on my toes.