To Do

Mar. 30th, 2010 06:12 pm
liaku: (slayers angry lina)
STUDY CALC EXAM, on Thursday.
WRITE HISTORY PAPER, due Monday.
READ ALL OF BELOW, by Monday.
Reading List of Doom )

It's raining and ugly outside, and I don't want to do any work. On the upside, tomorrow I officially declare my major, and all my study abroad stuff is mailed. At least that's two thorns out of my side.
liaku: (hetalia prussia)
So I imported a copy of Thicker Than Water by Mike Carey, the fourth installment of his Felix Castor series.  It's definitely my favorite series published in recent years (Discworld stood as a challenger until Unseen Academicals kinda sucked), and Mike Carey is just such a stellar writer.  I hated how the entire series is out in Britain and they're releasing the books one a year in the States.

I want to start it, and I probably will tonight, but there's just so much other stuff I should be doing.

On an entirely different note, I've started watching a tv show: Dexter.  I think it airs on Showtime (as far as I'm concerned, it airs on surfthechannel), and it's about an emotionless serial killer that hunts other serial killers.  It's a lot of fun; I like it.

Reading list for History, Bio, and Politics )
liaku: (angel vamp puppet)
[livejournal.com profile] greenie1980 suggested I post my reading list for the pleasure of all, and what with this being a brand new week with brand new assignments, my list has doubled in size.  The more the merrier!  On the bright side, I've finally written a rough draft for one of my application essays!  Yes!  Now I just need to polish it (a lot, it's kinda an ugly essay), and I'll have four more essays and a cover letter to go!  Woooo!  O, spare time, I knew ye well.

List o' Doom )

Somehow, my workload apparent has not stopped me from buying tickets to two Hungarian movie screenings at Lincoln Center next weekend.  Insanity becomes me.  At least they were cheap.  And it's not this coming weekend at least, because then I seriously won't have time to leave my studying cave.
liaku: (slayers angry lina)
I need to write these application essays sometime soon.  Like, really soon.

Also, I believe I'll be holed up reading all through the weekend.  I'm some 200 pages behind in politics, and I honestly have very little clue what's going on in calculus.  The former is something I want to fix, the latter will probably be a perpetual problem in that class.  In either case, I still need to crunch some numbers.  I'm also behind in history (not worried about that) and biology (but only because I slept through class today).  I am up to speed in Hungarian, but embarrassingly clumsy with some of the cases.  "Tessék?" now features very heavily in my conversations.

And no, I'm not taking German, but I've committed myself to reading all of Coraline in German in the meanwhile, probably at a very slow pace of something like one page a night.  Maybe slower.  So far, I've gotten past the dedication, the opening quote thingy, and two paragraphs into chapter 1.  ...Yeah, I suck.  I know.  But I'm trying.
liaku: (máté LJ calls)
The weather was disgusting outside.  My umbrella (and it was not a crappy drugstore umbrella, it was actually really nice but it already had a hinge broken before today) is demolished.  It's usable if the wind's not strong (it's wicked) and if I hold down one of the sides whenever there's a light breeze or, say, a sneeze, but it was enough of a pain that I decided I'd rather take the rain.  This is significantly better than my dormmate's umbrellas.  Most now open upside-down or are simply in pieces.

I had a class scheduling disaster that may yet work out in my favor.  Basically, I got into the intro international politics class, a class I really didn't think I could get into (why the fuck do they put enrollment limits on intro classes when there's only one section?  It's a goddamn prerequisite for nearly every politics class I'm interested in!), but I somehow magically got a spot... but not before it was too late to change my biology lab section, which happens during the same time.  There are no other lab sections that I can switch into that'd fix the schedule conflict.  I went to the politics class, and it was awesome, I loved it, and I really don't want to drop it.

The solution I'm looking at is to switch into a different level of biology, the intro biology-for-majors rather than the biology-for-retards/non-majors.  It shouldn't present much of an increase in difficulty since my current bio professor is probably the single worst professor I've ever had (including the one that forgot to show up for his own review session) and I have no clue what I'm supposed to be learning, which makes learning anything quite the challenge.  Anyway, this is assuming that the bio-for-majors class has lab sections open for times when I'm available.  I'm waiting on an email back from the lab professor, but since she suggested it in the first place, I'd be annoyed if it turned out to be a dead end.  On the upside, the bio department has agreed to not bitch-slap me for being a pain in the ass with last minute changes.

I saw Corbin Bleu's debut as Usnavi tonight.  He was good.  Not better than Lin Manuel-Miranda (who was there hanging out with the audience before the show, btw), though his voice is very rich and gorgeous.  A lot of the time, he sung more than he rapped, even when he was supposed to rap, which I don't mind.  Most interestingly, in Hundreds of Stories," during a bit where Usnavi talks about his parents and them dying, he totally broke my heart.  That song's never raised anything but laughs for me, and Usnavi's bit in it was touching in a generic way, but Corbin Bleu was intense.  I never even realized how serious that string of lyrics are.  The biggest shame is how much he's out-charisma'd by the original cast, what few that remain, but that's understandable and forgivable at this point.  I swear, Robin de Jesus owns the stage in ways that few actors can ever aspire to.  I'd have a huge actor crush on him if he weren't so short.
liaku: (ratatouille squee)
So I jumped through hoops of fire to get my ID card working since the cafeteria here wouldn't accept it, and on the way back, I spotted the activities office had a little dry-erase board put up advertising tickets.  I thought they'd email us, but if they don't do that usually, I need to stop by there every now and then to check what's selling.

In any case, I now have two tickets to Wicked next Wednesday, one ideally for [livejournal.com profile] emago (sorry for calling you twenty-thousand times while you were in class) but I'm pretty sure I can find someone willing to go if she's busy.  The seats aren't perfect (Mezzanine Row F [either last row of front mezz or first of rear, and I'm really hoping the latter], seats 2 and 4 on the right side), but damn cheap for Wicked.

And I see In The Heights again tomorrow!  More yayz!  But I have homework to do! Boo! D:

Anyway, I'm going grocery shopping tonightish, so I need to find every excuse possible to put off doing real work write up a list of stuff to buy.  Woot.
liaku: (cake or death)
I am completely lost in my German class.  Okay, I exaggerate.  I had no problems following along even if all the details were lost on me, and I was perhaps less lost than a few other people in class.  I am certainly at some level of lost though.  It's mostly just me forgetting all my vocab, so I'm going to have to review a bit.  In other news, German textbooks are expensive.  I have yet to figure out why anyone would ever buy the packaged version because even when bought new, the individual textbook+workbook is way cheaper.  (Seriously though, over $200 for two paperback textbooks?  They're not even nice-quality books!  Hell, they're not even acceptable-quality books. The workbook can't even be worth more than $30!)

At least the Hungarian textbooks are somewhat reasonable.  They're still a rip-off, but not by so much.
liaku: (Default)
Quick book rec: Dead Men's Boots by Mike Carey, which is third in a series, so I have to rec up The Devil You Know and The Vicious Circle. They're good fun too anyhow. It's essentially a detective series (the main character's an exorcist, but the mystery-solving's still there) set in AU London where the dead have decided to come back and hang out. Lots of fun to read. While I don't think Neil Gaiman's talent translated so well from comics to novels, Mike Carey's novels are brilliantly reminiscent of his comics--and his Lucifer was nearly as good as Sandman.

The new GI Bill is awesome, even if it's hell made of paperwork to file for.  I had assumed it'd just give me about $10k/year for my tuition, or whatever the equivalent of attending UMCP would've been.  Turns out it's a lot more than that.  I only have an estimate here, but my government will (potentially) be paying $970/credit and $3,457 to the school for my tuition (which covers my whole tuition if I take 18 credits instead of 15), and then handing me an additional annual $1,000 to pay for books... and another $2,777/month housing stipend.

In other news, my room now has cable.  Now I can use my TV for something other than videogames.  Woot.

Also, my animal personality is apparently either a Rooster or a Weasel.  (Or maybe a Zebra, according to them, but I read that one, and I'm not.)  The latter is particularly unflattering. :)

Barnard

Apr. 30th, 2009 06:27 pm
liaku: (kings king of the birds)
Barnard College sent me an acceptance letter.

Work work~

Mar. 25th, 2009 12:36 pm
liaku: (dr who converse)
I will never again volunteer to take two vocab quizzes at once.  I think I have something like 200 nouns and adjectives and a stupid number of irregular verbs floating in my head now.  That being said, I'm pretty sure I did well on them.  Mind you, I did not do well on the German midterm though I thought I did.  80%, by far the worst grade I've gotten in that class so far (I think second worst is a flat 90% on a quiz), and it's just stupid mistake after stupid mistake.  I actually guessed all the verbs I'd forgotten in the vocab section right, yet I somehow managed to conjugate ALL of them wrong.  Which is ridiculous since it's not like I don't know how to conjugate verbs!

Politics exam tomorrow.  I have a chapter (and a half?  don't remember if I finished the last one or not) to read, and then all the review questions.  I'd also like to start on my German homework, or at least make sure I understand everything in the chapter.  It's the simple past tense that I haven't looked at yet, so I'll have to read that section through and start memorizing irregulars.

And I need to plan this Disney World trip.
liaku: (angel vamp puppet)
Midterm today.  I feel... mildly confident.  Mildly.  Perhaps less than even that.  Tentatively nervous?  It's a good state to be in for  a midterm exam anyway.  100% confident is better, but I'll take what I can get.

I have another exam in Thursday in Politics, which means I've got about 8 chapters of reading to do, starting after I take today's midterm. I'm hoping to finish three chapters today, five tomorrow, and review Wednesday.  After that, I've rescheduled Wednesday's German test to Friday, so I've got to figure things out there too.  There's a vocab quiz in class today, but I think I can get away with taking it during Wednesday's class instead.

Also, I am surviving without my cellphone's alarm clock.  I just didn't pull down the window blinds, and I woke up at 7:30AM with the sun.  Jesus.  I kinda want my phone back just so I can try to sleep in a little more than that.
liaku: (Default)
The Good: After this weekend, I will have a TV.

The Bad: Because I have a new roommate.

The Ugly: Which means I need to clean up her half of the room.
liaku: (Default)
Because I did virtually no homework during my break, the next couple days are gonna suck.

Step-by-step plan that I don't have any choice but to follow. )
liaku: (shit d20)
I am now officially on the list for potential roommates to switch into.

Now that I'd mind having a roommate again, but even so. :(  It was nice to have a lot of space to be messy in.

ETA: Currently listening to the untracked Rudolf preview audio.  The orchestra is just fucking gorgeous.  I always love VBW's orchestra, but damn.  They've outdone themselves.  Just the short prelude is hauntingly beautiful.  I wish my German were good enough to understand more than, like, one word per sentence.
liaku: (suikoden pwned)
I just realized why I have so much homework, essays and tests to study for.  Not to mention that "exam" in politics last Thursday.  I was wondering what the professor meant when he said he'd scheduled it early to avoid us having too many exams to study for at one time.

Turns out it's midterm week, and I just missed the memo.
liaku: (ctrl alt del)
I feel like every time I blog, the only thing I've got to say is how much work I have. Well, I have a lot of work, and there's a big test (exam, he calls it, but I don't think it's weighed enough to really be an exam) tomorrow in politics. This is actually a bit frustrating. Last semester, politics was the class where I breezed through with pretty much a 100%. (Okay, I lost one point, but shit, 100% sounds a lot better than 99.9%.) Now, I'm struggling for a B+. Depending on the grade I got on my most recent paper, I might be in A- range, not that I'd be there for long since this exam will surely drag me back down. Either way, I really hope I did well on that paper. I don't want to fall below a B+, and a sold A would put me comfortably into the B+ range.

Columbia app is due 3/15. Northwestern on 5/1. I need to write Barnard a cover letter with my class descriptions included over the weekend. Tomorrow, I plan on chilling at Starbucks with a good book. A real book, mind you. Reading for leisure is something I miss. I have both my favorite Discworld books with me (Night Watch and Going Postal), but I might want to re-read Watchmen in preparation for the movie. I don't have any other books with me at school, so that's pretty much it for my options.

I've been listening to the Tutanchamun OCR quite a bit lately, and I've got to admit that I really like it. I'm not sure the music's quite appropriate for the setting, but it's certainly lovely music with a good blend of different moods and composition. That's probably my biggest issue with Marie Antoinette. I know it's meant to be accurate to the era, but half the songs have the same rhythmic structure, and all the songs have the same mood, which drives me mad. Well, it drives me bored, and the boredom drives me mad. But anyway, my point is that I really want to get my hands on those two Tutanchamun DVDs circulating around.

Also, one of these days, I really need to start a friending meme over at [livejournal.com profile] foreignmusicals.
liaku: (elisabeth felix/annemieke)
A random guy got on his knees and proposed to me at the bus stop. I said no. He asked why. Then we went around in circles about it until I asked him to get up, which he did, and he asked if I would kiss him, which I did, and then I got on the bus. And told him not to follow me, and needing to say that was a bit creepy, but he didn't, so it was all good.

Watched the latest episode of Sarah Connor Chronicles today.  It was awesome (uh, except for the Sarah Connor hearing/seeing dead people thing, that was lame, but used quite effectively), and it whooped Heroes' ass as usual.  I especially loved how the camera zoomed in and hovered over the urinals and the sink in the bathroom with the suspenseful music going on--and nothing happened.  I kept expecting Weaver to murder whatshisface in the men's bathroom like she did before, so I thought it was pretty funny when it turns out she was waiting in the hallway.

Pushing Daisies is an awesome TV show, and I am now upset that they canceled it.  On the upside, I'm still only five episodes into season 1, so I've still got a lot to watch before I'm done with it.

Anyhow, I am, again, overloaded in work. My fault, really. I haven't been reading the politics textbook at all, and I just discovered we're having a test on Thursday based on the text. I'm hoping to finish two more chapters before I go to sleep tonight, and then take care of all my German homework (everything assigned for the chapter since I decided to put it all off until the day before it's due again) tomorrow.  I'll stuff in time in the art studio tomorrow too, or stuff it in somewhere anyway.  I kinda have to.
liaku: (Default)
What pisses me off most about the Bremen Marie Antoinette recording is that Weil Ich Besser Bin is such an awful song to listen to, but composition-wise, I think it's the best song on the recording.  Thomas Christ singlehandedly makes it boring as hell.  I'm actually impressed by how badly he sings it.  I almost think I could do a better rendition with the right equalizer settings, and if I think I can do better, it's a pretty damn bad performance since I can't sing for shit.  That being said, I don't really like Blind vom Licht, but it's so catchy!  I've found myself humming it lately.  In general though, I'm not too excited about this musical.  I don't think it's an Elisabeth rip-off at all; I mean, you can tell it's the same composer since the instrumentation is often similar, but certainly no one was criticizing Beethoven or Mozart for not varying their composition styles too much over their career.  I just think it's boring and the themes rather scattered--but good sets, costuming, choreography, etc can all salvage my opinion of it easily.  Also, my German is possibly worse than my Japanese, so I really have a hard time figuring out what's going on, so that might be part of why I don't like it very much.

My German is so not worse than my Japanese.  I hope.

State of the Blogger: Barnard application complete, NYU app almost complete minus one particularly stupid short answer question--but common essay needs an extra round of editing.  Part I of Columbia application sent, application fee paid.  All other essays untouched as of now.  List and Space Cowboys untouched because I suck like that.
liaku: (dr who converse)
So, uh, given my progress on this essay thus far (and the common essay I need to finish--not necessarily perfect, but finish), I'm going to be up until 4AM or so.  Maybe I'll push to 5AM.  Given that I don't have to wake up until 11AM, that'd still get me six hours of sleep.  I can operate for a good amount of time (long enough for one class + a couple of hours anyway) with less sleep than that, so maybe 6AM or so would work too.

Actually, I'm going to admit that this essay is a lot easier than I thought it'd be.  I just can't focus on it.

And it seems like everyone loves Rebecca except me.  It's gotten to the point where I'm beginning to think I should read the book again, especially since the first time I read it was, what, when I was thirteen?  Fourteen?  Mind you, I still hate suspense in my novels, and while I could likely appreciate at least the writing more now, I don't think I'll find the characters any more interesting than I did before.  I guess once I watch the DVDs of the musical, I'll see if I feel like giving the book another shot.
liaku: (dead lannisters)
Okay. Barnard works on rolling admissions, so I'm trying to finish that one up asap--or that was the idea anyway. I've run into certain issues such as my adviser being completely MIA, not in his office, and not responding to my emails (he's had just under 48 hours to respond, and it ain't happened yet), so I won't be getting to talk to him very soon.  I'm very annoyed about that.  The professor I'd wanted to fill out my recommendation is also not around, but she at least has a secretary (like, four of them; there are perks to being dean of the grad school) to tell me she's out for the week.  The college counseling lady from my high school has also not responded to my email, but I seem to recall that she has Thursdays off, so I'll wait and if no response comes, I'll try calling her next week.

Anyhow, I just finished the Barnard supplement form and all its short answer questions.  Hoping to get the extracurricular short answer on the common app done tomorrow.  It's only 150 words, so theoretically, I could just leave my laptop on and type it up in my sleep.  I'm saving the weekend for all my homework the big common app essay.

Also, I just took a little typing test to see what my WPM was.  It's 109 according to this.  119 according to another test.

Alsox2, I really need to change up my LJ icons a bit.

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