Notebook of Randomness

The last few days have been fun. We had a party last night for our two resident protestants at the Catholic Center who have recently decided to convert. I'm pretty sure that Scott's doing it for his girlfriend, but Josh Copper has been hanging out at the Center for years, apparently, asking questions the whole time, and no-one thought he was _actually_ going to convert. But by golly, the other night he announced that he was ready to take the leap, and Fr. Fred said that he'd go ahead and waive the RCIA requirements because Copper already knows more about Catholicism than most Catholics. So come Easter Saturday, we won't have any resident protestants anymore. :-)

Of course, this being the Campus Center, the party consisted of the ravenous devouring of five pizzas and a few dozen cupcakes by twenty-odd people, along with a viewing of "Spaceballs" and much general goofiness.

Ooooh, and I almost forgot about the Atari. Hee. Laura brought her very old Atari to the Campus Center, Scott fixed it up, and now we can play Frogger and Ms. Pac-Man on the giant screen in the lounge. I feel vaguely deprived that this console was not part of my childhood. Now that I've gotten into a couple of 3-D games, the Atari is just so... retro. And extremely cool. Apparently it doesn't get any better than a few pixels and a simple objective that just keeps getting harder and harder to accomplish.
( KotOR II )

There was a field trip all weekend. This is what it was like:

Days: 1.5
Professors: 2
Vans: 2
Tents: 8
Total Students: ~16
Female Students: 3
Average size of undergraduate male belt buckle: Salad Plate
Average size of undergraduate male ego: State of Texas
Average size of undergraduate male brain: chicken egg
Varieties of Tobacco consumed by undergrad males: 2 (*gag*)
Tasteless, Homophobic jokes uttered by undergrad males: At least one (which is at least one too many)
Times an undergrad male fled from threat of estrogen: 1 (Hah!)
Number of times I contemplated beating obnoxious people (mostly undergrad males) with my rock hammer: ~423
Pyritized turritellids: 15 gazillion
Fragmentary brachiopods: 15 gazillion
Trilobites: 1
Limestone: Lots
Shale: Lots
Kimberlite zones visited: 1
Really cool rocks: many, many tons
Fish heads: 2
Scorpions: 1
Very Large Arachnid Lifeforms: Eeeek!
Venomous Snakes: 0
Ticks reported: 0
Meals at "Bob's Diner": 2
Alcohol consumed: none (amazing!)

In summary: Very cool field trip, would have been cooler if not for the stupid undergrad males.

My week consisted mostly of giving tests, grading tests, and even taking a test of my own. Another highlight was the arrival of Chris Peevey's new copy of "X-Men: Legends" for the Gamecube. As the owner of the new game, he has decreed that anyone who wishes to play will choose a character, stick with that character, and play the game in-character. So now the cast runs like so: Cyclops--Chris, Jean Grey--Cecilia, Wolverine--Gordy, Rogue--Me, Nightcrawler--Stephen, Iceman--Copper, Beast--Scott, Storm--Jacque. Yes, there _are_ enough geeks in the CD that this works. Scary, isn't it? Even scarier is how readily some of these people take to their parts. The banter between Chris/Cyclops and Gordy/Wolvie is hysterical. Though I think Chris's girlfriend may be taking some slight umbrage at the fact that Chris refers to Cecilia as his 'wife' during the game.

I also never realized just how awesome Rogue _is_ in the comics. In the game, she's a brawler, doing more damage than Wolverine and tossing cars around like Beast, and she can even fly. I'm getting a royal kick out of it. :-) It's a little crazy to watch the lot of us giggling maniacally at the amount of damage we're doing. Chris was talking to me before choir today about the mission they ran last night, and his comment was that it would be pretty terrifying to be a civillian watching a bunch of superheroes saving the world and giggling all the while...

Well, the last couple of days have been interesting...

I finished watching Trigun with the CD (Catholic Disciples) group, making it possibly the first anime I've actually seen beginning to end. There is talk of starting Inu-Yasha next, and I wouldn't object.

I got myself hooked on my first computer game. Again, I blame the CD. Chris insisted that I must check out "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic," and lent me his copy to that effect. I decided I'd give it a shot--but it crashed my poor pathetic slug of a computer, so I thought I was off the hook. But no--Chris and Gordy decided that it was _so_ important that I experience the wonders of this game that Gordy has lent me his laptop for the express purpose of playing it. And it _is_ addictive. Very fun. It's very much a role-playing game--there's even a function that tells you all of your 'dice rolls' in case you're interested, though the battles are in realtime (it's amazing how short they are, after hour-long 'thirty-second' D&D battles). And the characters are cool--lots of personality. Fortunately, Gordy's laptop overheats easily, so I have a built-in imperative to limit sessions to an hour or two...

And then there are the late-night 'fun-walks'--again, with the CD (noticing a trend here?)--which, though fun, have been keeping me out well past my bedtime. I was late to every single one of my classes yesterday--including the one I was teaching! Fortunately, Rei covered for me. I need to get more sleep. Badly. I think the stress and sleep-dep are telling on me. Or else I just ate something bad at food service yesterday. My digestive system seems to be disgruntled. I think I'll just stay here tonight and feed myself cereal or something else safe, lest my stomach lead an all-out rebellion against the rest of me... I've already missed Aikido once because of feeling icky, and I'd like to be able to go tomorrow.

I also think I'm officially dropping fencing. My Wednesdays are chock-full as it is, and with Geoclub and (official) CD meetings both taking place on Wednesday evenings (and both overlapping with Sabre Club), I don't think I'm willing to cram an unfulfilling hour of sabre into the time I could be eating supper with the Geo boys. The food at the Golden Q is lousy, but it's good to chat with the guys. I'm learning a lot from the more experienced grad students, and anyway, geologists seem to preferentially hang out at bars--I probably ought to get used to them. Part of 'maintaining professional relationships,' I guess.

On the up side, I got my first paycheck today, and tomorrow Bill's going to start teaching me prep technique at the museum. I'm eventually going to have a museum ID, passcard and key. Woo! Then I'll be all official! I can't believe I actually get to work at a museum--finally!

Oh, and my Thursday class wasn't _nearly_ as clueless as my Tuesday and Wednesday classes. Yay! They were more enthusiastic and more attentive as well. Also, teaching class gets easier with each passing day. I feel bad for the Tuesday lab--they're sort of the guinea pigs. It doesn't help that they're the largest and most apathetic class as well, though. I'm beginning to feel the deepest sympathy for middle-school teachers everywhere.