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Today is April 1. Only prank to report is Tavie's colour (since she'd spell it that way, hehe) scheme. I went to Wheatsfield grocery to get some health food stuff. Just to try something new & healthy, I guess. I ate some crunchy cereal that has soy protein. It was actually pretty good.

Today is band, we were playing a song where I play the bass drum in addition to my usual bells/chimes/etc. There's one time when I have to get back to the bells during a fermata and then play a little trio thing with solo clarinet and piano (don't ask). Anyway, Kleptach (our director) asks, "Are you going to be able to get there in time?" and I responded "That's really up to you, isn't it?" And he looked all confused but then some helpful person yelled, "Yeah, it's your fermata!" So everyone had a good laugh and he said he wouldn't hold the note forever but that he'd wait for me. Anyway I seem to get a lot of laughs in band, but it's not like I'm asking for it. I just get such good set-ups, I can't help it.

I hate it when they get a committee to get me off the block, just because I say my rhymes loud and I say 'em non-stop
Yeah that was stuck in the head song of the day... Slow Ride by the Beastie Boys =)


Today is April 2. I have a plan, which is to listen to all the songs on my iPod in alphabetical order. So far, we've heard...

This weekend is the student film festival for SUB. It's at the Design center on Friday and Saturday night. My friend Matt has an entry that I am looking forward to =)

Chip is a guy with good taste in music. I found his site when I was looking for pictures of Rick Wakeman in his silver cape (see March '03) . He has bunches of reviews of his music collection. Lo and behold he also likes Tori, which is cool because I was trying to compare her w/silver cape guy in the first place. Neat, huh? Anyway, go check out his music reviews for some fun stories of chasing people out of bars by playing progressive rock!


Today is April 4. It's snowing outside. We were sweating our tits off all week long and now there's snow. Lovely. But the ground is still pretty warm so there shouldn't be any problems getting around town or whatnot.

Song-listening is going fine. A few concerns come to mind, though. I noticed that all the song titles that begin with "the" are under the t's. Which is a bit upsetting to me, since normally when you order titles alphabetically, you disregard a, an, and the (at least that's what I thought). SO it's probably not as scientific (by which I mean, Library Science) as it could be. But a fun project nonetheless.

In other news, Chris is coming to visit this weekend. He should be here in a couple hours. Tonight we're going to play videogames and eat pizza, the traditional gamer-american way to spend the weekend. Now I'll just need my bottle of Shasta and all-Rush mix tape...


Searching for a high school that you know doesn't exist...

Today is April 7. The above lyric is from "San Dimas High School Football Rules," by The Ataris. It's kind of a love song (or a lost-love one) but I really like the above quote because it describes me, in a way. Sometimes I feel like I was supposed to be this cool, bad-ass girl in high school, and now I've totally missed out on it. I guess the time went too fast and now I'm wishing I could go back and re-do it, maybe in a difference city, or time period, or both. I have this image of myself as a skinny little bitch, with poker-straight brown hair down to my butt, driving around in a blue Camaro listening to Van Halen. I think it would be pretty cool to be that girl.

In the real world, I guess I'm still kinda cool. Case in point, last night I went to see Less Than Jake with my friends Regan and Alicia at the Toad Holler in Des Moines. I had so much fun. They played all of my favorite songs and YES, I MOSHED! It was exciting and scary and fun all at the same time. I took a little breather and spied Eric, my friend Faith's fiancee. Which was sorta funny but after I saw him I remembered seeing him in a LTJ shirt before. (Which he happened to be wearing at the show, thus making him "that guy," see also, PCU)

In my "All-iPod-songs-in-order" project, I'm now up to "Clocks" by Coldplay as I'm writing this. I try to sing along, but since I can't, I just sort of mumble. Lights go out in a candy place, could not stop, sheebo waaaayyyy, singin'..." Speaking of music, I am proud to bring another installment of Rachel's Stuck in the Head Song of the Day. Today's song is "Comfort Eagle," by Cake, and it comes to us from Chris. And if the alphabet is up to its old tricks again, I'll be hearing it soon, too.


Today is April 10. One thing you learn from watching "Queer as Folk" is that boys are WEIRD no matter if they're gay, straight, bi, what have you. Boys are weird.

Um, so still dealing with the wack insomnia. It's not fun. Although I've been reading some more essays from my Gloria Steinem. I've been working like a crazy person on Cpr E 308; after I get done w/this update I'll probably tackle some more.

On a positive note, I finally got the baby pineapple My Little Pony of my dreams. My only hope is that she doesn't get taken hostage as her momma was.


Today is April 15, the big tax day. Well, I already received my Federal and State returns so I'm cool w/that stuff. UM I made up an invention for ISU's college of engineering which I am calling "Engineer Screening." This would be something you get tested for as a freshman or sophomore. Everyone says calculus is the weed-out class for engineers, but if that's true then why wasn't *I* weeded out? I kicked ASS in calculus and it's painfully obvious I'm not cut out to be an engineer. Hence, Engineer Screening. I'm not sure what the questions would be, but I think it would be along the lines of "How lazy are you?" "Are you a total freakin' go-getter?" "Do you give a damn about vectors?" See I really hate vectors. I have known this since high school. Anyone who hates vectors probably shouldn't be an engineer. Engineer Screening could have saved me semesters and semesters of heartache. Don't let your child be the next victim. At his or her college visit, demand Engineer Screening for all incoming freshman into the school. It could save a life!

So yeah. I hate school. I thought I had more to journal about but I guess not. Peace out.


Today is April 18. Time for a random story of Pain. I was getting on the bus today, and it was one of those buses where it goes up in the back. So the seat is at the same level as the window. Anyway, I was putting my bag on the seat and getting all situated, and I turned around to sit and I totally whacked my ass on the slidy latch thing that opens the window. First I was aware of serious pain, and then I looked around and realized what had happened. Luckily by the time someone needed to sit next to me, a couple of stops down the road, I was fine.

Right now I'm supposed to be working on my Cpre 483 homework. Which is really funny since he promised us at the beginning of the term that we wouldn't have homework for this class! I don't really want to do it, but I suppose I should try something, since as Mr. Justice used to say "Zeros don't add up fast in the gradebook." Then it's off to tutoring. Whee!


Today is April 21. When Rachel and Jonathan collide! I just thought that was funny. I already have When Rachel and Nancy collide, actually 2 things. One is a flat ceramic pineapple with the Spode Christmas Tree design on it, that Karen sent me for St. Lucia Day. The other is a knitting book for how to knit small fruits, pineapple being one of them. And I guess when Rachel and Chris collide is the pineapple that transforms into a Hello Kitty.

Other things that I want to write about but keep forgetting go here!


Today is April 22. If I was a teacher and I had a bad kid like me who didn't want to do their work, I would assign them to write an essay entitled "Why I Think The Rules Shouldn't Apply To Me." For some bad kids like me, this might work in shaming them into doing their work. For other bad kids, who are REALLY like me, this would just strengthen their resolve not to do their work by reinforcing their deluded belief that the rules, in fact, do not apply to them. And what a world.

Did I mention I like my other drummers in concert band? They're so nice. Brian, Donavan, Mark, Mike, Patrick, and Tiara are all pretty cool and fun to hang out with in band. I say this here not to suck up to them, since they already like me for some reason, just to have a record of it.

Today my friend Jen said that I looked like an anime character with my big scarf tied up in my hair. I took that as a compliment. Maybe I should live my life like an anime character. Not in the cosplay sense, but only because I'm not hot enough to pull off the slutty schoolgirl look. I'm talking about acting as though I have latent magic powers I could develop (under the guidance of a talking animal) and use for the betterment of a society (either feudal or futuristic)


Today is April 23. Here are 2 dreams I wish to share. Monday night, I dreamt I was in my room in the apartment, sitting on my bed, trying to smoke a joint. Keep in mind, I've only smoked tobacco cigarettes, and even then I sometimes had a tricky time lighting them. I finally got the joint lit, but I think whoever rolled it used too much paper, or something. The end was a big wad of paper. In the dream, I was all worried that my roommate, Alicia, would get mad at me for smoking in the apartment. Even though I wasn't having much luck trying to smoke it.

My dream last night was that I went to visit Mitch, the creator of Nothing Nice To Say. He has been sick lately, and in the dream I was paying him a visit to see how he was doing. I identified myself as "The Genesis Girl" because IRL I have e-mailed him to talk about The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (the last Genesis album w/Peter Gabriel). He had mentioned it in a journal entry and I was pleased to find another person who liked punk and prog. In the dream, he lived in a big room decorated all in white with very little furniture.


Today is April 29. I know I've been just awful about updating lately, but I had a big mother of a CprE 483 project and a CprE 308 test. And, yes, some guy really did yell "I am the toilet king!" after completing the test, but it didn't really phaze me much. I didn't even think about it too much until reading about it on ST, as I was perusing the classes forum. I do this from time to time when I need help with something. Since there are a fair amount of EE/CprE/ComS folks on ST, I can often find something useful. Like today I found out my tutor is completely weird on the boards (though very nice in real life). Sadly I didn't get the help I needed (it has to do with the current ComS 309 hw) but I got to read some funnies anyway.

Speaking of "funnies" although now I will use it in the sense of comic strips as opposed to funny things in general. I received another Doonesbury book today, bringing my grand total up to 44 volumes. I have 4 left to get. The complete list of titles, in chronological order, can be found here

Now my plan is to do a practice test for ComS 309, then go grocery shopping. I'm down to canned goods, some Kashi, instant oatmeal, and a box of mac and cheese. Yeah.



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