Fear the Crab

Maile told me she had to go to the emergency room because of pain in her stomach and back. She believes it was acid reflux (sp?), but the doctors at Kaiser took some blood tests to ensure it wasn’t gall stones. Maile’s experience at the hospital was less than what those commercials would have you believe. The staff were abrupt and rude, and the nurse that took Maile’s blood made the ordeal literally painful. In addition to perhaps hitting a nerve while looking for a vein, they screwed up the sample somehow, forcing Maile to wait even longer for a second test to be conducted. At least the second time around, a lab nurse came by and did an excellent job extracting the blood, with no pain at all.

I’m still worried about her health, and I wish there was something I could do to help her. I don’t think I’ll get any homework done tonight, not with everything running through my head.

Today was a normal day at school, except for the fact that I found out the Legislature has cut the budget for the ICS department, meaning that there will be less professors and less classes for me to take. Considering the amount of students already in the program (and likely entering the program in the future), the chances aren’t looking good for me to get into a class. Compound that with the fact that I register last, and there’s a problem. I won’t know the full extent of this problem until next semester, though.

Feeling particularly tired, likely due to the constant early rises I’ve had to endure these past two weeks. Four to six hours of sleep aren’t enough to someone used to a full eight. At least today I cut back on the coffee and instead loaded up on energy via orange juice and breakfast food from the school cafeteria. Their scrambled eggs were very fluffy and delicious, and of course a breakfast meal can’t be complete without fried rice, portuguese sausage and spam.

Narrowed my choices down to either the Toyota Tacoma or the Nissan Frontier. Both are comparable in terms of quality and maintenance, with some differences in power and handling. I think it will eventually boil down to how much all those extra options will raise the price. Now the research turns to finding out those facts.

Today I did absolutely nothing, and it was everything I could have hoped it would be. Actually, I did putter around online for a good bunch of hours, but was idle time since my homework for the day was done. Took a nap, spent a little time with Titan, ate some steak for lunch and some pizza for dinner, and that was about it.

Maile, on the other hand, had a lot of homework. Most of what she had to do was all from her history class. I remember one of the self-test questions being “Why slavery in Mesopotamia is enlightened?” I have no idea what that question is asking. Is it saying that the concept of slavery is enlightened, or the slaves are enlightened? Without any understanding of the question, perhaps the only hope is that the rest of the class doesn’t get it, forcing the professor to remove it.

Must try and sleep tonight; tomorrow’s another early riser.

Maile, George, Chanelle, and Jason were sleeping over at my house. Strangely enough, we were in my living room, on a piece of furniture that looked like a large-scale model of a station wagon. Maile and I were sleeping in the trunk of the station wagon, George was lying on the back seat, Chanelle was on the front bench seat, and Jason was lying in the footwells.

We all woke up and were trying to figure out what we were going to do. I was feeling very lazy, when all these strangers started showing up at my house. Normally I wouldn’t have allowed them in, but everyone else seemed okay with them and started to hang out. I was a tad upset by this (considering it was my house), and declined to join in the fun. Maile and I got into a brief argument over it, where I explained my feeling about the whole matter, but for some reason I kept getting the sensation that it was ME who was overreacting and being anti-social (even though it was my house and these were strangers coming in). I hopped into the shower, upon which a Smashing Pumpkins song kept playing in my head, and visions of long-haired grunge bands entertaining professional wrestlers jumbled in with a classical dose of Handel. Instead of sliding glass doors I had shower curtains, and these curtains kept blowing open in an unfelt breeze. The water pressure suddenly dropped to near-zero levels. Needless to say, I have no idea what SP song it was.

Started off the day on four hours of sleep. That’s what happens when I get off of work at 2315 and turn off the lights at 0000, only to wake up at 0400 to get ready for school. The waking up wasn’t too bad, actually. I think the primary motivation is that I really need to attend every class, and can’t write it off like how I did in my younger years.

One cup of coffee in the morning, followed by a cafe mocha at 0700. Another cafe mocha at 0900, and by 1100 I had to pee like I could see through time. I actually felt my body shrink after using the bathroom for the fourth consecutive time, and whoever said eating asparagus made it stink has never drunk three cups of coffee. All that caffeine can’t be doing good things for my body, but at least I stayed awake through all my classes.

When I got home I immediately came down from that high. It was not pleasant. I was barely coherent and all my thoughts were jumbled and garbled like encrypted packets sent through a 28.8 modem. I apologize for the computer reference, but after a full day of nothing but, it’s understandable that it’s all I can think of right now.

A bit of good news, though; I finally managed to find that one song that had eluded me for years. I hear it on commercials, in movies, and every which way I turn. It sounds cool, but I never knew the name nor the composer until today. The song I was looking for all this time was “O Fortuna,” from Carmina Burana, composed by someone named Carl Orff. I actually don’t know if Carmina Burana is an opera or somesuch, as different locations would list different things and not in any clear manner. It also appears there is a band (or another song) named O Fortuna, but I avoided those links. After years of searching, I’ve finally found what I’ve been looking for, and now I feel highly accomplished.

The Toyota Tacoma is looking rather expensive. As an alternative, I may research the Nissan Frontier. I’ll have to see what the reviews say; it may not be worth it to go the cheap route, especially if it only hampers me down the road with repairs.

I’m going to turn in early tonight. Regardless of whether or not I’ve said that already, it only lends more evidence to support that decision.

I dreamt of this food product that looked like a cross between cookie dough and butter. The odd thing about this product was that you could eat it by itself, or use it as the foundation for another dish. For example, add more butter to the mixture, and you get cookies. Throw in some vegetables, and you get stir fry. Methinks some of that recursive math has gotten to my head.

Today was a busy day for the store. There were a lot of customers, and a lot of purchases, making the night quite a productive one. Add in the fact that Mondays are run nights and it’s easy to imagine how busy everybody was. The rush didn’t die down until 2200, so I took that opportunity to take a break.

Spoke with a few people about my interest in the Tacoma, and so far everyone agrees that it’s a worthwhile purchase. It’s making me feel better about my choice.

Maile is having a few problems in submitting her assignment online. It seems there aren’t any step-by-step instructions on how to do it, and there’s no way of knowing (so far as we can tell) whether or not the assignment was received. It’s not due until the 11th, so Maile has a lot of time to email the professor and ask for instructions. Perhaps there’s a page we’ve missed, or something that helps describe the submission process, but if it’s hard to find, then that’s merely more evidence to our request that it be easy to understand. There’s nothing worse than completing the assignment and turning it in, only to find out the professor never got it.

I’m pretty sure there are other people in the class who are having similar problems. If enough students complain, perhaps the professor will upgrade the submission process.

I’m feeling awake right now. That is not good, since I have to be up in 4 hours to get ready for school.

I remember reading a whole bunch of text, as though I were playing CheesyMUD. However, it was not CheesyMUD, but rather some flight combat simulation game like X-Wing, except it was all in text. Bog and Kyrol were there, in text form, and Kyrol had just tweaked the game code to allow people to join in a combat that was about to happen. Everything was very new to me, especially the commands, and it seemed I was the only one who didn’t know how to attack or maneuver in the game. I was, fortunately for me, unfortunately for them, teamed up with Bog and Kyrol, and I pestered them with questions. This went on for a good minute or two, before I woke up to the sound of a combination lock.

Maile is doing well with her homework, especially for her psychology class. Her paper/proposal assignment is progressing well, and all she has left to do is find the right set of words to properly describe her agenda. She came up with a great topic for a survey, that of what those in the medical profession think about euthanasia. This assignment is not due until Tuesday, giving her plenty of time to “touch up” her words for greater efficiency. I only wish my math homework could be like that.

Speaking of math homework, I must rewrite my assignment so that it’s legible and organized. Right now it’s a jumble of notes and scribbles as I wracked my brain to try and figure stuff out. I have arrows pointing to whatever free space there was, where I wrote additional notes or solutions. I don’t even know if any of them are correct.

Irene found out today that she has been selected for jury duty. Normally one would think it a golden opportunity to play god with another person’s life, but in this case Irene does not want to go. The selection process is scheduled for Monday the 23rd of September, and Irene has a full day of classes. As I am also a student at the UH, I can sympathize with her plight. It is difficult to miss even one day’s worth of classes when the material is quite important to one’s impending graduation. I’m not even sure if the professor’s would understand. Still, I told her to talk to her profs and see if they can either suggest how she can get out of jury duty, or find some way to give her the materials beforehand. There is, of course, the chance that she may not be selected to serve on the actual panel, but she would still have to go that first day, which loops us back to the main problem.

Today’s Invader Zim episode(s):
Invasion of the Idiot Dog Brain
Bad, Bad Rubber Piggy

Work was interesting, but only because of the conversations I was able to have. There was a little toddler boy who really really wanted a mini-recorder keychain, so badly in fact that he tried to break the glass door with his tiny fist when his mom finally dragged him out crying.

I got my first homework assignment for ICS 211. I had to make a web page, which will be the starting point for all those Java applets we are planning to make. The simplicity of this assignment is lulling me into a false sense of security; I’m trying to force myself to believe that it’s not going to be a cakewalk, just so I can take it seriously.

As far as ICS 241 goes, I finally managed to complete the first assignment. I don’t think it’s 100% correct, but at least I did what I could to the best of my understanding.

I helped Maile try and figure out why her printer isn’t displaying its status window. At first I thought it was because XP was installed over the printer drivers, but after I removed and reinstalled the drivers, that darn status window still didn’t show up. The printer still works, though.

Tonight’s UH football game:
Eastern Illinois – 36
Hawaii – 61