I'm waiting for a cantor to practice, so I figured I'd do a quick post since it's been a month.  I'll try to not ramble too much.

• Classes are done.  I'm doing a calc course in a few weeks, but right now, I'm pulling 40 hours in the lab.  I got a D in orgo II.  I will have to retake it.  I'm going to corner my advisor later, after she's had a vacation, and see what I can do about avoiding Dr. Pervert for that.  I've been thinking about taking it in Petosky, where my sister now lives.  I just don't want to deal with that creep ever again.  Fat chance, I'm sure.
• I nearly ended up with a cat.  Two were abandoned in a ditch, and took up residence under my sister's-in-law boss's porch.  One was a declawed female, one was an unneutered male.  Her husband wouldn't let her take them in, and the dumb fuck didn't want to take them to our local NO KILL shelter, so I offered to take the female, since I do have five rats.  Well, she was all set to dump her on me, but then I guess her husband changed her mind and she took the female in.  Her kids finally convinced her to take the male to the shelter, too.  I'm honestly kind of relieved.  I really don't care for cats, but I'd have done my best.  
• The church is frustrating the fuck out of me, and the people are pissing me off to no end.  However, my one class I'm taking this summer came with a $1500 tuition bill.  I really need the $200 I'll make this weekend.  I really wish they'd just respect I've moved on because they all think I'm worthless and leave me the fuck alone.
• I'm still sitting on a half-finished GameBoy, and I can't even start working on my next project (recasing a DSL) until I get my tuition paid and I can use my credit card again.  I've just been too tired to want to go down to my shop, even though I've been staying up plenty late enough to have gone.  I suspect part of that is I've got internet (and Netflix and WoW) back after a while.  I want to keep watching the shows I was watching before I got in all that financial trouble over my card being compromised again.  I'm so GLAD to have a bit of time to play video games and fool around again.

Other than that, I've been fighting a terrible depression slump.  That goddamn Balrog and his cronies are still haunting me and trying to drag me down.  The cluster fuck of orgo II didn't help either.  I just... I don't know.  I just want to give up.

So there's this song I used to play.

The wall of text in that post is copied behind the cut for your ease of listening enjoyment.

Well, I spoke with the University Ombudsman.  I was told that since the prof wasn't singling any person or group of people out, and he wasn't acting in a malicious manner, I didn't have a valid complaint.  In fact, I'm apparently oversensitive and need to accept that other people are sexual and will act in a sexual manner.  Professionalism seemingly counts for nothing at all, and since he's "a family man with four lovely daughters", he means no harm.  I was crying like a kid with a skinned knee.  Really?  He means no harm?  Then why are so many people I speak to in that class DESPERATE for the semester to be over in two weeks so they can "get the fuck away from his creepy ass"?  I can't approach him personally in his office by myself and ask for help.  I am that alienated from him, and I'm the one at fault?  I was told that since I already see a psychiatrist, I ought to consider working on my sexual phobia issues. 

In my defense, I'm pretty certain I'm just asexual and not phobic.  I've read some pretty raunchy fic, and although I don't get off on it, I've tolerated it just fine.  However, even with my complete lack of interest and negative physiological reaction to any form of arousal, I'd have probably laughed my ass off if one of my peers had said some of the jokes Dr. Pervert has made.  I strongly feel a classroom isn't the place for such humor, and a student/teacher relationship is inappropriate to be carrying on like that.  Shit, I'm not looking for a lawsuit, or for him to be fired, I just want to see him respect that he's overstepping the bounds of the student/teacher relationship and STOP. 

In any case, I had a routine appointment with my psychiatrist (yes, I have both a psychiatrist and a psychologist. Shut up.) today.  He's been working with me since I was fourteen or fifteen.  He knows how I feel about the matter, he knows I'm not a trusting person, he knows where my issues are.  So I brought up the whole mess with Dr. Pervert and what the Ombudsman told me.  His suggestion?  "Well, does this professor take attendance?  Going by the syllabus provided on the first day of class, is attendance mandatory or just strongly recommended?"  I answer strongly recommended.  He doesn't take attendance, but he does call out students in lab when he misses them in class and they don't provide an excuse.  "Well there's the optimal solution.  You're a very capable learner on your own.  Show up for labs and exams, but don't stress yourself out by putting yourself through his lectures."  I expressed my fear that other staff would think I'm not taking my education seriously, and that there would be repercussions.  He doesn't think that'd be the case.  Maybe he's right.  After all, the Mad Russian seems to like me.  The two profs in charge of the EA Lab like me a lot.  Hell, my advisor knows I'm having issues with Dr. Pervert and was the one who felt I ought to file a formal complaint.  I'm going to try it, though.  There's a week and a half of class left before exams.  There's not much that can really hurt me now, I'm doing so bad.  Besides, I am hard-wired to be nocturnal.  STAY UP UNTIL 3 AM THEN SLEEP UNTIL 10?  FUCK YES!

Anyway, I'm off.  I'm not sleeping well, I'm grieving, and I'm stressed.  Gonna breed me a new Qwilfish because NOSTALGIA BOMB TODAY.  Good night.

School is kicking my ass bigtime.  I pretty much swore I wasn't going to do anything this weekend.  I failed the Mad Russian's gen chem exam, although I scored above average and got some of the most difficult questions correct.  As for Dr. Pervert's Orgasmic chem exam, I didn't even finish enough problems to pass, even if they were all correct.  I know they weren't.  I have HAD IT with his goddamn sexual similes and his retarded assumptions.  Rather than give me a specific temperature for reheating a compound in lab, he told me it was "like reheating a baby bottle.  Just warm to the touch."  Okay, first issue: not everyone with tits and two x chromosomes knows how or wants to know how to raise children.  Some of us can't stand the little parasites and are perfectly content never having any interaction with them whatsoever.  Second issue: hot to the touch?  My partner and I cranked the hotplate. I don't know what temperature the metal was, but he couldn't touch it.  I laid my hand on it for two minutes with no discomfort or pain.  My point is "warm to the touch" is subjective.  In any case, letting Dr. Pervert set the temperature, and following his instructions clearly, we lost our product.  It went into the solvent, and we never saw it again.  We're getting marked down for that, too.  I'm to the point where even looking at my notes or text for his class brings on a crazy rage.  I'm told other people teach the class.  I'm going to keep showing up, keep doing my labs, but if I don't get my C or better, fine.  Just get me away from him.    I'm going to have a lot to say on my semester-end survey.  There was some reaction he likened to a reach-around, but I've lost what we were even talking about when my brain was flooded with disgust.  One of the senior research students hanging around the lab says they're valid similes, because sex is a big priority for college students.  Well, it may be a big priority for SOME to MOST college students, but definitely not all.  Not by a long shot.  And even if it is a priority, most people don't want to hear that shit from their organic chem prof.

Anyway, that's all I've been up to.  Getting my ass handed to me by school.  Now to crawl back into bed, because even though "Hey Man, Nice Shot" is on RockBand 3, I am too damn tired to even put the disc in the Wii.

Yesterday, I was meandering through Twitter, looking for people to follow.  I came across a tweet that just PISSED ME OFF SO MUCH.  I don't recall exactly how it was worded, and I don't care to go back and find it, but the gist of it was "If you say you like everything but rap and country, you're just too ignorant to look outside your race and socioeconomic class."

. . . . . . . . SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU STUPID TWAT.

Seriously.  My dislike of rap hasn't got a goddamn thing to do with my race, the race of the rappers, or anyone's socioeconomic position.  It has everything to do with CANNED BEATS WITH MONOTONE REPETITIVE CHANTING ABOUT FUCKING HOS AND POPPING CAPS IN BROS is one of the most dull and uninteresting things that has ever been forced onto me.  If we're going to bring class into it, why are rap artists and the biggest rap fans all wearing better clothes, driving better cars, living in better homes, and JUST GENERALLY SO WELL OFF?  I do realize that rap has its roots in slave chants.  I'm not denying that at all.  However, I would rather listen to work chants than rap ANY GODDAMN DAY.  Work chants are typically simple and repetitive, but damn, they are catchy and imaginative.  I can accept that's where rap's roots lie, but I think we can all agree that rap seems to have embodied a totally different class and culture today.  

There are a very select few rap songs I've had forced on me through various media that I've tolerated and even liked.  One that immediately springs to mind is Coolio's "Gangsta's Paradise".  For starters, it actually contains snippets of melody.  The bulk of it is chanted monotonously, but there's enough variation to keep me engaged.  Speaking of variation, the words are another point of interest.  It's yet another lament about the pointless violence and lack of improvement in thug life, but Coolio's far more eloquent than just bustin' caps and fuckin' hos.  If there was a bit more innovation and variety in rap, I'd definitely be more open to exploring the genre.  However, gems like that don't seem to appeal to the typical rap fan, which isn't going to encourage anyone to be anything but repetitive and boring as hell.

Then there's country.  I'm not even sure what class that genre's even supposed to represent.  I suppose it's meant to be the hard-working farmer, but I really don't know.  Again, it has nothing to do with class.  I'm not too keen on the twangy vocal technique of the style.  I suspect the reason has far more to do with the fact that I was classically trained for clarity and precision in music performance, and I've just been so conditioned to consider it poor technique.  However, I do know a world-famous opera singer who FUCKING ADORES country, so maybe it's not my training after all. Point is, that twang tends to wear on my nerves fairly quickly.  I can go down to the pub any night and hear people sing like that.  Why would I want to buy a CD/MP3 of it?  I'm not too impressed by the subject variety I've found in country, either.  Look at something I do like: Jethro Tull.  We have Celtic legends, Christian mythos, a reflection on society-enforced roles, cats, HORSES, jilted lovers, astronomy, and interpersonal relationships.  Pink Floyd gives us political commentary, social commentary, philosophical questions, reflections on insanity, and some kickass instrumentals.  What does country give us?  Jilted lovers, sex, and pickup trucks.  Maybe it's my asexuality's talking here, but NO THANK YOU.  BORED AS FUCK, GIVE ME SOMETHING ELSE, PLEASE.

Which brings me to the instruments itself.  There is so much you can do with a guitar.  Rock learned this LONG AGO, which is why we have rhythm guitarists and lead guitarists.  Classical's been proving this since the time of the Romans.  If you haven't ever looked into classical guitar, you are missing out.  However, country guitar is a denial of all of this.  All country gives you is massive walls of strummed chords.  I am the shittiest guitarist I know, and I can give you massive walls of strummed chords.  Guess what!  They're boring!  There's nothing to catch your attention and make you listen, trying to figure out just what they did, and exactly how they did it.  STRUMSTRUMSTRUMSTRUM.  If you're lucky, you get finger picked chords.  Which then go PLUCKPLUCKPLUCKPLUCK in an eternally repeating pattern with no variation whatsoever, but it's not overwhelming walls of STRUMSTRUMSTRUMSTURM.  But simple, dull, guitar bits over equally simple, dull drum bits?  AND CHRIST. THE BASS.  I've gotten fairly decent at the bass, both acoustic and electric.  However, country bass is the MOST GODDAMN BORING THING IMAGINABLE.  To quote my buddy Rhodes, "One.  Five.  One.  Five.  One.  Five.  Fall asleep, and your hand keeps plucking alternate open strings, and no one notices."   It is excruciatingly, mind-blowingly dull.  I am serious.  You can feel your brain die of boredom when you are stuck playing a country bass line.  Rock might stick you with four or five, but that is so much better than two.  Jazz is repetitive for bass, but at least the standard bass riffs are interesting and engaging.  Country doesn't even give you that.  Pick that string there.  Now the next one down.  And that first one again.  And the second.  First.  Second.  Ad infinitum ad naseum.  All of country is like this.  There is nothing at all to engage me and make me take notice and think "That's pretty cool."  That is why I hate country.

If I ever have the misfortune to meet the fuck who thinks my reasons are because I'm ignorant, I WILL PUNCH THE SHIT OUT OF THEIR FACE.  AND THEIR KIDNEYS.  YOU are the ignorant person for trying to insult me when my opinion differs from yours.

BTW, I'd also like to point out that at no point in my rant have I called any rap/country fans ignorant.  Why?  Because they're not.  I've always figured they can hear something I'm just constantly missing, or they don't feel music should have to engage them as fully as I feel it should.  If you like rap/country, GO ON LIKING IT.  I think it's great that you like it, I think it's great that it exists for you to like.  Just don't fucking tell me I'm racist/ignorant/elitist because I don't like it.  BECAUSE I'M NOT.

Fucking twat.  I will punch you.

I decided to take a break from Twin Peaks to watch Tempus Fugit/Max to celebrate Agent Scully's birthday.  I suddenly discovered that the FAA agent investigating the crash is Joe Spano, the actor who plays Fornell on NCIS.  THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!

New drugs.  They smell like skunk spray.  Thus begins the joyous time of "Is this gonna make me sick?  Is this gonna make me black out?  Is this gonna fuck with my mood drugs?  What's going to happen to my energy levels?  What's my brain going to do in the next thirty seconds?"  I'm aware that my psychiatrist is thinking it's time to change my bipolar drugs because they just aren't as effective as they should be.  He's smart enough to wait until I'm leveled out on these first, thankfully.

I've been thinking about using one of my characters as my "official" personification over the interwebz.  I have several reasons for wanting to do that; the biggest is I'd like to occasionally make doodles of some experiences since I am trying to be a better artist.  I'm just not comfortable presenting myself as I am, so I figure I'll just hide behind someone else of my own making, even if I don't necessarily go by their name.  I've kind of been considering several OCs and even a few fan characters. 


( Cut for blathering about characters... )

And now I'm going to go keep drinking and watching Man's Best Friend.  Today was just BRUTAL, and my orgo prof creeps the fuck out of me.  BRAIN BLEACH PLEASE

Woke up this morning to discover the house temperature was around 30F.  Turns out the filthy hippie living downstairs took an access panel off the furnace, and the safety system kept it from turning on.  Wonderful thing for the fucktard to do before leaving for the weekend.  Outside temperature has been running -40, pretty common for the area this time of the year.  Thankfully, no plumbing froze and none of my rats seem to have any ill effects.  I put some rags in the cage, and I'll probably leave them there.  I'm kind of worried about this happening again.  I just don't get why the fuck anyone would go fuck around with a furnace before disappearing for a weekend.  It's bad enough I can't sleep with his damn tv blaring right beneath my bed.  If he keeps putting my rats in danger, I am gonna freak out on his ass.

In other news, I've been watching some different things on TV while doing homework.  I'm going to blab a bit about them, if anyone cares what I think.

Parks and Rec- I've heard a lot of people love this, so I decided to give it a try.  I thought it was boring, shallow, and totally stupid.  I'm not even sure what the plot was, to be honest.  Something about a park?  There were very few moments I liked.  The hand-held camera shit was pretty off-putting, and the characters weren't very engaging at all.  I really didn't find much humor in it at all.  It was pretty much a self-indulgent home video, as far as I was concerned.

Sherlock- So far, I've only seen the first episode.  For the most part, I really enjoyed it.  The music is great, it's a pleasant surprise to see some actual crime scene protocols in action.  However, it's missing something that I used to really enjoy about Holmes.  This Holmes doesn't have the social refinement and polish that Jeremy Brett, Basil Rathbone, and the Holmes of the books excelled at.  It's an interesting twist, but it's pretty much like watching myself try to interact with people and utterly fail.  I've lost the little bit of escape that the books gave me by presenting Holmes as a fully functional person.  I can't aspire to that level of functionality with the show.  It's just too much like watching myself.  I still enjoyed it, but I am really mourning the loss of that thing.  I'm intending to watch more eventually, but at this point, I just don't want to.

Wolverine and the X-Men- This one's a recent remake of the 90's cartoon.  There are some new plot elements, even though it's the same humans vs mutants.  I really liked seeing Wolverine put in charge of the team.  It's so not his place, but they presented it as a challenge, and he takes it very well.  Cyclops is still his absolutely useless pansy-ass self, however.  Then again, when isn't he?  Nightcrawler was a bit of a sadsack, but there were some elements of his more upbeat, adventurous side.  Magneto's voice actor was trying WAY TOO HARD to be Sir Ian McKellen, though.  That got a bit much at times.

X-Men: Evolution- By far, this is the X-Men cartoon incarnation I like the least.  There are life lessons inherent in X-Men that are just great, but this was one of the most preachy, morality-shoving things I've seen in a while.  They also seemed to be trying to cram 40+ years of canon into a four-season cartoon.  That didn't always work for me.  I mean, it was ALL there.  Sentor Kelly, Trask, the Sentinels, the Morlacks, Apocalypse, Forge, you name it, it was probably there somehow.  Something that genuinely pissed me off was that they made Destiny and Mystique into sisters.  WHAT THE SHIT.  SHE WAS THE FIRST LEGIT GAY COMIC BOOK CHARACTER, DESPITE THE COMICS CODE AUTHORITY AND THEY TOOK THAT AWAY!  Of course, there's also no mention of Black Tom whatsoever.  Still, it was good enough to maintain my interest up to the conclusion.  However, the amount of moral life lessons they tried to shove into the last four episodes made it so damn lame.  I'd probably want to watch it again at some point, but unlike the Wolverine series, I'm not going to shed any tears if I don't manage to own all the DVDs.

I'm not entirely sure what's next.  I started the first season of Twin Peaks on Netflix, since I do already own the second season on DVD.  I didn't quite finish MillenniuM before I started the others.  I've now got all the NCIS DVDs, so I could go back to that.  I've still got to get over that hangup I've got regarding X-Files.  Something about Mulder's faked suicide just gets me now that Rig killed himself.  I keep telling myself it's not the same, but emotions don't listen to reason.  

In any case, it's now back to homework.

Going to see my psychiatrist Monday.  We're heading over Sunday night, since my grandma has to be at the same hopsital at 5am for a minor outpatient surgery.  I'm pretty much planning on staying up all night until my mom takes Grandma to the hospital, then when there's an empty bed, I'll catch a few hours of sleep.  I'm missing a full day of classes, but I've already rescheduled my gen chem lab.  My prof, The Mad Russian, has been very understanding.  Next week, I'm getting an examination under anesthesia, so I'll be missing another full day.  I was just told by the doctor to expect to need to take Tuesday and Wednesday off as well.  Wonderful.  At least it's early in the semester.  I ought to be able to catch up fairly easily. 

In other news, I was thrilled to see DW take a stand against SOPA and PIPA.  Tabled does NOT mean defeated, though.  The fight isn't over.  It's really just begun.  We need to let the supporters know that tabling isn't good enough: we want these bills GONE.  We will fight for our freedom of expression and an uncensored internet.  However, the fact that LJ didn't do anything just pissed me off.  Yeah, I did post something to the screencappery comm today, but I am sick of LJ.  It's just so much fail these past few months.  Now that I've gotten my excess aid refund, I'm going to pay off my credit card, get ahead on my doctor bills, and if I can, go to a paid account on DW.  They've been fantastic about providing everyone with an alternative to LJ, I want to support them.  I wanted to upgrade back when my :J subscription ran out, but I've kind of been without income for all of December and part of January.  The timing of winter break and the priest at the church going to India for a month just really screwed me over.  I really had to get desperate to make ends meet, but now that school's back in session, I'm digging myself out of my hole.  Or so I hope.

Now back to that video game meme that I just keep dragging out...

( Day 25: Game I plan on Playing )

In any case, I am mildly drunk, and tired as fuck, so I'm calling it a night.

Where did break go?  I have been so crazy busy I haven't even had time to read peoples' entries.  Classes started today, so I guess I'd better just get used to it.  Call me an insensitive, rude asshole, but I was sincerely hoping more of the fuck up students wouldn't have the grades to keep going.  First day of classes, and the yappy fuckwads didn't shut up at all.  Byers no longer has the battery life to last for a fifty minute lecture, so I'm trying to find some other way to curb my ADD enough to pay attention.  Drawing isn't working too well for me.  I'm overdrawn by about $600 waiting for a paycheck (ANY PAYCHECK!) to come through, but even if I could afford it, I hesitate to spend even $40 on on a new battery.  I know Byers has an iffy mobo.  He's just not worth the $200 that would set me back to fix.  I don't really want to lug Roedecker around.  15" is enough of a pain to transport, and I don't want to risk anything happening to my main machine.  Not when Probie's screen just broke without any cause. Day 24 of the video game meme: Favorite classic game.  Probably Tetris.  Dr. Mario, Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, and a few others are right up there as well.