My mom sent me this in email as her new philosophy on life, and I loved it enough that I am going to join the woman in using it as my motto:

If you can’t be a good example — then you’ll just have to be a horrible warning.

So tonight I’m working on a paper that is due tomorrow and then I will be studying for my second art history test.  Tomorrow I will hand in the paper then leave class to last-minute cram for the test.  I should not have put this one off so late.

Then I have to furiously clean my apartment, as a friend is flying in this weekend.  She was going to go visit her gravely ill god-mother but her god-mother passed away today.  So she’s gonna be camping out on my sofa (the friend, not the dead god-mother) which means I have to clean.

Sometime this weekend I have to write a paper that is due Tuesday for my History of Photography class.  I am genuinely afraid of this paper.  It only has to be three pages long but she wants foot notes, copies of pictures we reference in the paper, 5 sources and is a stickler about everything.  She has a two page list of requirements and gripes suggestions about how to write a good paper.  Single spaced.  From a typewriter.  Ayy.  I’ll be in the Library all weekend for this one.

And lately - especially this week - I have been so internally angry with just about anything that I’m seriously about to pop.  Grr.

w00t I got a B! Solid 85% on it. I am still confused over one section of the slides because the way she worded the question and the way she presented it today when she went over it in class are opposite. Oh well. I am satisfied with a B

Ok so for the longest time people have been asking me “WHY IS YOUR FONT SO BIG???”

Well its not.  They’re using Internet Explorer and it doesn’t work properly.  Every other browser on earth renders things the way they should be.  So if you don’t like reading letters that are 3/4″ tall please feel free to download FireFox or Opera.

Biking to class this morning - I see a posted that says “Warning, photos of Genocide ahead” huh? Get closer and there are “informative” displays showing 8ft tall pictures of aborted fetuses. Gross. NOT what I wanted to see at 9am on a Monday. Once I got out of class, I headed back over there to see what horrible thing they would be doing in the quad with their loudspeakers and to my delight the Women’s Coalition was out with signs so I locked up my bike, grabbed a sign and helped them counter-protest.

Some of the arguments these people use are silly. When they sense they are not winning the argument the deflect the questions and work it out into a class or race issue. When those didn’t work they tried to play word games. One example was “When a momma duck and a daddy duck mate, what do they make?” My answer: Eggs. When the man asked “What do you get when a momma human and a daddy human have sex?” My answer: Zygote. When they were asked if they supported sex education that would inform and enable youth to use methods of birth control so that a woman woudl’nt need to have an abortion, they used the boring ‘ol “no sex till marriage” argument. Because, obviously, it is working so well.

Pro-lifers are about continuing the victimization of women. Nothing pisses me off more than a wealthy white heterosexual male telling women or anyone else what they can or cannot do. Its also an issue of social control and sneaky right wing attacks to freedoms and liberties of all Americans. If you don’t think the conservative agenda is about eroding your rights and controlling you, then you haven’t been paying attention to the news lately. No one in American society has rights if someone is actively targeting groups of people to take away rights from them.

You might be next.

The last two weeks have been an emotional drain for me. I have had so many conversations where person A is bitching about person B. Then Person B bitches about person C. C bitches about A and B, and all I can do is sit there and smile and nod. D calls and bitches about persons A, B, C & E-P. This all goes on with every single one of them knowing that the other has done the same in my presence at one point or another.

All day long if I was out I wanted to be at home, and if I was at home I wanted to be out. Once I got home I just sat down and started to cry. I hate being brain-screwed like this, its so hard to function. I was driving over to a friends house to pick him up today and went right past the turn I needed because I was so spaced out. So I have all this crap, plus the weight of two papers and a test coming up in the next week and a half, then after that 6 more papers/tests for mid terms. Gross.

Spring break is close and I am very much looking forward to it. Not that I am sure it will do me much good, since I don’t think I can afford to fly to KC to visit my friends and my funding sources are very wishy-washy about paying for it.

If I can’t fly to KC I might just road-trip it to Vegas or something and go crazy for a night or two. I’m sure I can find something distracting to do there.

Staring at the sea Will she come? Is there hope for me After all is said and done Anything at any price All of this for you All the spoils of a wasted life All of this for you All the world has closed her eyes Tired faith all worn and thin For all we could have done And all that could have been

Ocean pulls me close And whispers in my ear The destiny I’ve chose All becoming clear The currents have their say The time is drawing near Washes me away Makes me disappear

I descend from grace In arms of underflow I will take my place In the great below

I can still feel you Even so far away Lyrics copyright Trent Reznor / Nine Inch Nails 

The.  Scariest.  Shower curtain.  Ever.

Today I got a real confidence boost from some faculty at ASU.  I had an appointment with one of the Associate Directors with the school of art to look over my work to kinda guide me a bit and tell me about what I need to put in a portfolio, as I need a portfolio review to be admitted to the upper-level photography courses that are taught at ASU.

He reacted very positively, and told me that my work was well above the average work of the typical Photo II student at ASU and that I should have no problem getting through the process and being approved for upper level.  YAY!!!

They posted the grades to my sociology test I took on Tuesday.. the bad news is I just barely missed a B, but the good news is I have 3 other tests and a paper that all have the same weight so I can still totally get an A in the class.