Saturday, October 28, 2006

One exam down...

Picture it:

Thursday, Oct 12, 2006.

2:00 pm. Me, sitting on the couch in my pajamas, surrounded by chemistry (as in books, labs, notes, homework assignments, not as in actual chemical reactions, although technically I was surrounded by them too.) It starts snowing, and through the tears in my eyes, I pray to God that it will snow so hard UB will close the next day and I won't have to take the chem exam.

10:00 pm. Still snowing, but Grey's is over, so I go to bed. I have class early, and then have to study more. There's no way UB will close...they never close.

Friday, Oct. 13, 2006.

12:30 am. Amy wakes me up and says, "I know you have class in the morning and an exam tomorrow night, so you need your sleep, but you HAVE to see this."

The next six hours: Apocalypse.

So, my exam was postponed. Sorry, everyone...that whole "October Surprise" thingy? My fault.

Fast forward a week. I'm in Chem lecture. My prof says the test has been rescheduled for Oct 27th. I pull out my datebook to write it in, and realize that I now have 4 major tests, 6 labs, and 3 quizzes in 3 weeks. Oh, and an extra credit oral report. On sex determination in alligators.

My first exam was last night. I got my name right, and I'm pretty sure I got my student number right (that's already better than on the PSATs, where I spelled my name wrong...) The rest of the questions? It's very possible I did OK.

Thursday, October 26, 2006

So, remember how I'm moving? How Amy bought a house and there's a sold sign in front of it and we have a closing date and she signed all those papers and PAID people and everything? Well, she hasn't gotten a commitiment letter from the bank yet for her morgage. The morgage guy, Dick (yes, that's his real name, but also an apt description), has been avoiding her calls. She's called about 6 times every day, left messages, and he never calls back. So finally last week Thursday she just drove over to his office. He was surprised to see her, but told her that everything was in order and she should have the letter sometime this week.

We need this letter. The guy that bought the house we're in now is making us move out on the closing date, Nov. 30th. Our proposed closing date is Nov 30th. Our landlord's closing date on her new house is also Nov 30th. So she's trying to push the closing date on the current house off for a week, but, still, that doesn't give us much time to screw around.

So, Amy's lawyer (a.k.a Uncle Matt) has been calling to see if we've gotten the letter. Finally, Amy gave them Dick's number. Theresa called Amy yesterday, freaked out, because Dick no longer worked at that morgage company.

Amy spent over 3 hours last night with another guy at the same company. They no longer have Amy's file, so she had to redo everything, but Amy showed them that she had already paid her deposit with the copy of the check she had. The new morgage guy looked at it, and said, "cancel this if it hasn't gone through yet." Not only was it way over what she should have paid, but they had no record of her paying it and couldn't find it anyway. DICK!

I'm kinda happy this happened. Dick obviously wasn't doing anything for us, and this new guy already has almost everything done. Amy should have the commitment letter next week (for real this time.) And Amy put a stop payment on the check she gave Dick, so hopefully it won't go through.

Anyway, if this new morgage guy (let's call him Not-Dick for now) is really as good as he seems, we should really be moving the first weekend of December. I'll keep you all updated on that, though, since I know you'll want to help :)

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

A few days ago I was at Canisius meeting with an wait to see if I get accepted, first.advisor about what they could do for me, should I transfer to their beautiful school. I was parking in the visitors lot, where there were about 10 open spots, but each open spot had an orange cone in front of it. I waited and waited for the parking guy to come move them, but he was no where to be found. I didn't want to be late for my meeting, so I got out of my car and ran to move one of the cones. I was within arms lenght when I reached out, tripped over my foot, twisted my right ankle, and landed on the cone with my left hand. I never technically hit the ground. The cone bent, and my wrist bent backward, but it stopped me. I moved the cone, parked, and went to my meeting, trying to forget about the pain and pretend I didn't trip over my own foot. My ankle is a little bruised, and my wrist hurts if I move it a certain way. I was going to sue, but I think I'll wait and see if I get accepted first.

So, yeah, I met with an advisor at Canisius. I wanted to make it through at UB, but, I hate it. I've decided that I need the help I can get at Canisius to get through sciences. I mean, their biggest lectures have 55 people in it! My biggest lecture at UB? Over 600. The bad things are:

1.) The cost. Yeah, Canisius is a lot more than UB. But, I want to get into dental school, and if I continue at UB I will not get into dental school, I will just have UB loans to pay back with a job at...well, McDonalds, or, worse, Olivers. If I take loans out to pay for Canisius, and go to school there, I will get into dental school. And then I will become and Oral Surgeon. And make enough money to pay back the loans. I win.

2.) UB's lowest BIO class is BIO200. I'm in it. Next semester I would be in BIO201. Canisius has the same BIO200 and BIO201. But, they also have BIO101 and BIO102. They won't let me take BIO201 this spring because I haven't taken 101 or 102, even though I'm in 200 right now. Boo. They also don't have the same calculus class I'm in, so, I have to retake calc. Boo again. So, the class I'm doing the worst in, Chem, is the one class I get to use. I'm in Chem 101 and can take Chem 102 this spring at Canisius. I suppose I could possibly use my Bio eventually and skip it when I'm supposed to take it, after the 101 and 102, but, we'll see how I do.

I've weighed the pros and cons, and Canisius wins HUGE. So, assuming they accept me, again, for the 3rd time, I'll start there this spring. I'm excited. It makes me want to cry less every time I drive onto the UB campus.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Garth Snow vs Steve Shields

Remember when the Sabres couldn't score, but they could fight? After the game Tuesday (9-1 over the Flyers) I think I like them scoring better...as long as I can go back and watch videos like this...

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Esther thought that she was the last to post about the big storm, just because Mike, Aly, and Scott had already posted. She's wrong, I'm posting now. They have better stories (or, at least stories they can {1} remember and {2} tell on the internet) but I have stories.

I already posted about Thusday night (so I guess I did technically beat Esther.) It didn't change much after that. Amy, Sue, Chris and I stood outside on the porch and watched trees fall on the cars. My car was never hit, luckily. All the people on the block were out on their porches, and when the noise from falling trees wasn't too loud, we'd yell to each other to make sure we were all OK. It was nice, in a scary, war-zone way. Around 4 I made coffee and we drank that until we ran out of Baileys.

We finally went to bed around 6, but woke up around 7 when Amy's step-mom called to make sure we were OK. I called UB to make sure I didn't have class, and the number said they were open. I walked outside and saw this:




















There was no way I was getting off the street, even with no trees on my car.

I spend the rest of the day moving trees (ok, I watched the rest of the block move trees...I threw some snow balls, then walked to the store to buy more Baileys and other supplies. But I got some pictures on my walk:)

The rest of the weekend I spent staying warm and watching TV and movies.

All in all, I got off easy, especially since I was the one who prayed and prayed for anything that would keep me from having to take my chem exam on Friday...

Friday, October 13, 2006

OH MY GOD, it's the Apocalypse. Yes, it's 2 am and I'm blogging just in case a tree falls on my bed and I die. I love you all. Thanks for reading.

Seriously, though. Amy and I are sitting in the livingroom watching trees fall on cars. WHOLE TREES. Well, mostly whole trees. Like, half trees. Luckily, I was parked on the wrong side of the street and had to move earlier and got the last spot, but also the only spot on the street not under trees. Amy's car was hit by a tree, but it only bounced off and broke her antenna (we think...I won't let her go out there because {1} the news people said not to incase there are powerlines, {2} trees are still falling, {3} there's nothing she can do about a broken antenna and some scratches right now, and {4} it's 2 am and we're still on the west side). Our landlord's car? Covered in a tree. Her roommates car? Doesn't look good from the window.

It's kinda cool. There's a little snap, and then a whole tree falls. If it wasn't scary, it'd be cool. Like a weird sci-fi movie.

Oh, so, if the city of Amherst is closed, is UB still open? If there's a driving ban in Buffalo and Amherst and the 33 is closed, how do I get to school (and my exam?)

HOLY SHIT, there's a tree on our porch. How do I get out of my house?

Thursday, October 12, 2006

(Coffee + Chemistry) X 10^23 makes me puke.

You know what I hate about studying for exams? Everything. But, mostly, it lacks good blogging material. I could tell you all about Avogadro's number (which makes me want guacamole), or how every time I have to do any sort of math with scientific notation I cry, or how I just realized that all I've had today is coffee, and lots of it, so maybe that's why I feel like puking (I'm blaming that feeling on the chemistry, though), but, really, that's not funny. Or exciting. Although Toby
thinks it is:

















See how enthralled he looks?

Instead, I'll ask you all to pray that it snows SO MUCH tonight that UB is closed all day tomorrow. Or at least until after 5. When I have my chem exam.

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Use it or lose it..

So, remember when I was a pastry chef? Not that long ago...like, last year. Yeah, I worked for that really nice restaurant, remember? They didn't let me do too much...I did a lot of catering, so mostly cookies and brownies and cakes and stuff. not the fun a la carte dessert stuff. But, I made a shitload of cookies and brownies. You'd think I'd remember how...

Amy's told me once or twice (or a few thousand times) that her favorite kind of cookie is chocolate chip without the chocolate chips. Easy, huh? I mean, I'd make chocolate chip cookie dough every day that started with 4 pounds of butter. I know how to make chocolate chip cookies. So, tonight, after I made chicken tetrazzini for dinner, I decided to make Amy some cookies.

The first batch looked OK. The dough was a little soft, but I had used 'I Can't Believe It's Not Butter,' so I expected it to be soft. You can't use 'I Can't Believe It's Not Butter' to make cookies. They melt. And then burn.

Ok, so I had a feeling that wouldn't work. But, it only took me about 10 minutes to make the dough (remember the pastry chef thing? I got good at making it really really fast) so I decided I'd make it again with some real butter that wasn't soft. The butter was fine. I let Amy measure everything and sift the flour, but I watched to make sure it was all measured right. The dough was perfect. The oven was set right. The cookies looked perfect. But something smelled...like alcohol. I wasn't drinking (I'm still not drinking), and neither was Amy. But Amy used vanilla extract that she had bought years ago. So I tasted the dought. It was OK at first, but then there was a definite nasty alcohol taste.

I was going to give it one more try. And then decided not to. I'll go buy cookies from Mrs. Fields tomorrow.

Monday, October 09, 2006

Sorry I haven't updated...I'm addicted to the Panda show...

I would like everyone to know that I'm grown up now. I'm officially no longer on Mom and Dad's cell phone plan. I did some shopping and found that Cingular has the best rates for the amount of time I spend on the phone plus the number of texts I send and places I call. Verizon won't give me the same plan Mom and Dad have been paying thousands of dollars for for me for the past 6 years (that's a lot of 'fors'...), so I'd end up paying more for just me than they were paying for me, Louis, and Mary. Not cool, Verizon, Not cool. Plus, the people at Cingular are...well, nice. So, as long as the phone actually works, I can't see a bad thing about this (other than the part where I pay the bill...)

Anyway, I'm no longer "in." Unless you have Cingular. Then I'm "in" now, so call me. My number's the same.