A tragicomedy of epic proportions

Patient H.M.'s brain

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:35:00 GMT

This is freaking amazing. I can actually kinda identify some parts too! I finally actually understand the sylvian fissue; diagrams and the small pictures in our text didn't do it justice.

I think it's lovely.

Well, it’s been interesting.

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:16:18 GMT

My birthday was great. We went to Toronto to see the Dead Sea Scrolls, and I saw the Ten Commandments Scroll on its last day. On one of the scrolls, the scribe had left a word out, so he’d just gone in and written it above the line. I think that, for me, was one of the most moving things; it just made everything seem so much more accessible. I mean, who hasn’t done that?

On Monday I did my Criminology midterm, and I think I did well. On Tuesday I had my Biological Psychology presentation to do, as well as my Social Psychology midterm. I note this because on Monday, at about 8:00 PM, I came down with severe stomach sickness. I did not go to either the presentation or the midterm, and in fact did not leave my house for several days, and then it was only to get my doctor’s note. It turns out I have viral labyrinthitis, and it’s probably going to be sticking around for a while. I’m not as sick as I was, but I’m so, so tired all the time, and reading (which I kinda have to do for school) makes me sick. I would describe this thing as like being on a roller-coaster you can’t get off of. I’ve been taking motion-sickness medication, but it’s still not great.

I’ve been given the chance to do the presentation tomorrow, and then I’ll have a week to write a ten page paper on it. Yay. The midterm however I will not get to do. They’ll calculate my marks from my other marks, so I guess I’d better just kick ass at everything else in this course.

QQ

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:14:14 GMT

Last year I started university. I had no friends there, and, with my social skills, I couldn’t reasonably expect to make any.

In place of any actual human attachment, I decided that I’d spend my time with a certain tree. It was lovely and huge. It reached out of a little courtyard and up so that its branches hung over the roof that I’d run across to get from class to class. It was so thick and tall that I thought the university had been built around it, and perhaps it was.

This summer it was cut down to make way for an organic farmers’ market.

That pretty much describes my year so far.

FML? – I deserved it

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 21:21:15 GMT

So, I got hacked. Or, rather, I went out and gave away my information.

Stupid right?

I've been using a global password for a while. Not for everything, but for my facebook, and my email account, and most things that I'd paid for and thus assumed were legitimate. I managed to use it for ten years without a problem, so I thought I was keeping it pretty safe.

Yesterday, I signed up for an SPC card. You have to go out and buy the cards (though in my case, they were part of a special package at school) so I thought it was fair to assume that I could enter all my information without worrying about it. I signed up with my e-mail address, and used the password on spccard.ca / spccard.com that I also used with that e-mail address. It was also the address and password that I used for Facebook.

Minutes after that, my Facebook account started sending out spam messages. There was one about every hour. A friend eventually told me about it; (I actually brought the subject up; it likely would have gone unnoticed otherwise. Apparently it "didn't really sound like" me, I suppose because I don't usually tell everyone about how I've been losing a ton of weight on new diets that you can learn about by clicking a tinyurl, or gush over colon-cleanses – I'm really grateful to that friend though; I wouldn't have found out without her, and she's been very kind and has been checking Facebook to see if there are any new messages when I can't. [None so far!]) I rushed home to see what was going on. I changed all my passwords. It was fairly easy to reclaim Facebook, but they'd changed the password on my e-mail account, so I had to work to get into that.

I've certainly learned my lesson about using the same password for multiple things, but I'm really shocked that it was the Student Price Card that ended up screwing me over. I've done complete scans, and I have no viruses or spyware. I haven't used that e-mail and password for anything in quite a while, so I very much doubt that anything else could have been responsible for this, and the fact that the problems began just after I registered cement my suspicions.

I googled "SPC Card hacked" (and a bunch of things like that) and got no results, so this must be a rare problem. I'm not too surprised about that; you have to be pretty foolish for this to happen in the first place. Still, dude, I paid for that. When I make the effort to acquire things legally, through the proper channels, I expect that they'll not go out of their way to fuck with me. (EA Games aside, of course.)

I was really in a panic. I'm glad that I deal with panic by going into an "I've got to fix this!" mode rather than by crying or running around driven solely by terror. It's really disheartening though; it seems like everything related to school this year has opened up a box fullo' emo. Shit better start looking up soon.

An explanation of the last entry

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 03:59:44 GMT

I spent hours planning my schedule for this year. I began months early. I outlined the courses I would take not just for this year, but for all that follow. The week this year’s class times were announced, I organised everything. My schedule was optimal.

On the day that registration for my year opened, I stayed up all night. It began at midnight, and although I attempted to log in at five minute intervals, the server was too overloaded for me to get on until half an hour had passed. Even with this setback, I knew I was ahead. How many others would be neurotic enough to start registering the moment they could? Well, enough to shut the servers down, I guess, obviously… but still, they must have been as delayed as I was. I was one of the forerunners.

And yet… the most important course… full. The others I’d wanted… scattered. Some were full; those that weren’t were full on the times that I’d planned to take. All of my carefully laid plans had to be cast aside. I grasped at anything I could, but came up short. I have only four full credits, rather than the five I was aiming for, and my schedule is awkward, with painfully long gaps. I managed to get into Lifespan Development, Personality and Individual Differences, Perception, Fundamentals of Social Psychology, Introduction to Criminology, and Law and Societal Justice, which I wanted, as well as The Social Psychology of Social Issues which I was not planning on. The only other thing I could get into was Introduction to Brain and Behaviour, which is technically a neurobiology course, and not really my bag, baby – though it does look interesting, I’m afraid it may be a bit much for me.

I believe that the courses were filled by third years. They get to choose courses before we do, and some of them chose ours because when they had needed them, the third years of that time had filled them. I’d heard a lot of people from higher years in a variety of majors and departments complaining about it last year. It’s a problem with the system, but I’m not going to revolutionise it.

That’s fine. I’ve got enough courses to be a full time student and just enough to get the scholarship renewed. I’ll be taking the main course during the summer – that’s cool, because it keeps me from doing nothing but Warcraft (I hit 80, by the way) for four months like I did this year. It also means that I’ll have to spend an extra year in school, because one of the courses that I couldn’t get into is a prerequisite for another course, which is a prerequisite for another course and so on. I’m down with that actually. It’ll cost a lot more, but I’ll be able to take some interesting courses that I wouldn’t have had time for otherwise. Also, it’s another year in the warm embrace of Academia before I’m cast out into the cold wilderness of The Real World. Maybe “warm embrace” isn’t quite accurate, but it’s what I need to hear right now.

The main thing now, is that when I went to school to scout out my classrooms, I noticed that I have a class on one side of the school fifteen minutes after a course on the other side of the school. That’s fine; I can make it. I’ll buy running shoes, and a jet pack. It’s all good. Problems arised however when I noticed that I also have a class on one side of the school that is fifteen minutes apart from a class that is not simply on the other side of school, but also across a parking lot, a busy street with lights that I would have to walk down to, another parking lot, and in a plaza. I don’t think I can make that one, even with a jetpack.

I phoned the school, to see what to do about this, and what I’ll have to do is ask the professor for the class in which I have a seminar if I can transfer to another seminar. As it stands now, they’re all full. I can only comfort myself with the fact that I only took that specific seminar because it was the only one available, and I really needed the course so that I could get the tuition paid. The tuition is now paid, and the way it works is that if a student drops out, even if they drop out before school begins, they don’t get any money back. The cash game is done. So, if worst comes to worst, a replacement seminar can’t be found, and I have to drop one course, I won’t lose the part of the tuition that the scholarship paid for. I might not be able to renew it, but we’ll deal with that when it comes to that. In such a case, I would have to drop either Brain and Behaviour, or Criminology. The former looks fascinating and would probably be very useful, but the latter is better as far as moving ahead with courses is concerned. Of course, if I get really torn about it, that extra year raises its head.

I guess the best thing to do at this point is to just go with the flow. The bookstore doesn’t even have the neurobiology textbook in yet. I’ll attend all the lectures for the first week, and I’m sure whatever happens will be for the best.

Alas!

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 14:46:02 GMT

My plans have been THWARTED!

The Enigmatic Case of the Cat, the Dog, and the Bodily Fluids

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 07:10:11 GMT

The dog and the cat keep playing a game which may or may not actually be sexual harassment. I think it's an "arrgh, I'm going to stand over you and nibble on your neck because I want you to play with me!" from the dog, and an "OMFG! No! GTFO you perv!" from the cat.

I've been having to wipe gobs of dog slobber off of Étoile's back. He usually likes that, I think it's because he thinks I'm cleaning him affectionately or something - he likes licking us, so evidently he thinks it's a nice gesture, and not just to claim us, or because we taste good.

It would be nice if they got along. There are some moments where it looks like they could, but those moments tend to end with me yelling, "Do not crush/bite/harass my cat!" or mother yelling, "Do not scratch my dog! Claws stay in!"

Bre-an, as it turns out, is persistent in the same way that Edward was brilliant. This means that where Edward would find new and interesting ways to get around any obstacles, Bre-an just keeps pushing through those obstacles until he overcomes them. This has caused problems because even when he gets hurt, he keeps on trying. He's watched the cat, and thereby determined how to get over the baby-gates, but there are some parts of the gates that he can get stuck on, painfully. I have had to extract him when he gets stuck, because he doesn't try to get unstuck, just to get all the way over.

It has also caused problems in house training. He seems to believe that he'll keep defecating wherever he wants, and eventually mother will stop scolding him for it. Edward appeared to feel shame when he had an accident. Bre-an has no accidents; he pees with intent.

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 22:14:18 GMT

I am wearing my hair in odango right now, and it's still long enough to reach halfway down my back.

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 07:51:54 GMT

Well, my minor came through, so that's great.

Bre-an, seriously.

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:01:39 GMT

On Sunday I spoke with F. I guess the key is communication, but I don't really feel better having expressed myself. Perhaps this is because I often get the impression of speaking to a brick wall. She says that she never asks questions because she's learned that I'll say something if I want to, and she knows how private I am, and doesn't want to pry. I think that's bullshit. I had to make her promise that she would show interest in my life, which I think is probably not something that someone should feel they need to request of their best friend. Whatever, it's not like I can pick and choose. She says I've always been there for her, but she knows that she's not always there for me. She said so many times that she knows that I don't trust her anymore, and she understands why, and she knows I'll never fully trust her again. Apparently she is happy with the status-quo, because she's never done anything to change that. The girl she used to be would have tried.

Mother and I took the dog to the vet today. He sat on my lap in the car, and squealed and squirmed for the whole ride – there and back. When we got there, mother registered his name: Bre-an. I was shocked. I had not been informed of this change. I generally do not approve of hyphens in first names. I should not have been surprised though, this is, after all, the woman who named her daughter Alandrea, but still. Still. At least she was happy that no-one mispronounced it.

Bre-an is 10.8 pounds, and perfectly healthy. We are going to get him a harness for the car, so that he can learn to ride around in it without freaking out. He and Étoile are still not exactly getting along, but not exactly... not getting along either. It's weird.

Breon

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 02:37:37 GMT

We brought home the dog today. We’re naming him Breon. He’s very sweet to everyone, but he’s obviously taken to mother and is going to be her dog. I keep comparing him to Edward. I keep crying.

Étoile was sleeping when we brought Breon home. Everything seemed to be better than we thought possible; when Étoile woke up, he came downstairs to eat, and walked right by the dog with no reaction other than a slight glance.

He ate, said hello to me, then walked by the dog again. Then, I saw the best silent big no since Italian Spiderman. I guess he was still half asleep the first time by, so he didn’t really notice the puppy. He’s spent the rest of the day getting slowly closer to Breon before scampering away. Luckily, Breon does not yet seem inclined to chase him. He doesn’t seem to like Breon yet, or rather, he doesn’t seem to know what to think of him. He seems to understand that he is not being usurped though, so that’s very good.

The dog’s kennel is right outside my door, and he won’t stop whining because he wants to be in my parents’ room. He stopped for a while when Étoile poked at him through the bars, but then mother yelled at Étoile because teasing the puppy really is not fair, and his claws are only clipped.

I hope they learn to get along. And I really hope he stops whining soon.

So far, we are considering the names Collin, Aaron, and Brian pronounced Bree-an.

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 05:23:02 GMT

Well, we're getting a dog. A man at the market who sells organic vegetables (mostly potatoes) bred some Border Collies, and on Saturday he brought one to show while selling his wares, so my mother saw it and started talking to him about dogs. On Tuesday, mother and I went to the man's farm, and saw the litter. There had only been two boys, and one was already spoken for. Mother was charmed by the puppy, so decided to take him.

He's very sweet, but I am as of yet unconvinced by his charms. I think he's ugly and he smells bad. This is probably an indication of an absence of soul on my part, and will hopefully be remedied once I get to know him. Mother, father, and I will be going to pick him up this Friday.

Hopefully he'll get along with the cat; we think there's a good chance that he will, because there were a lot of barn cats about, and he seemed to have a healthy respect for them. Still, Border Collies are herding dogs, which means that he's very likely going to be a chaser, and Étoile enjoys playing tag.

He is six weeks old, and I very much doubt that he's potty trained at all. That'll be fun. The man said that he wants the pups to go to their homes as early as possible so that they'll better bond to their people. I am not sure I buy that, but it's probably a good idea to get him out of the barn and in to the house as soon as we can.

It was a bit awkward when I was at the farm to see the puppies. I am the epitome of city girl, so, "What pretty eyes that cow has," I said, staring directly at the bull's horns. Also, it took me about 5 seconds to say "Ooh, look over there... it's a... rooster!" I think the man was rather bemused, but he didn't laugh at me outright, so I guess that's okay.

School and Star Trek

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 07:41:13 GMT

One week ago, at this time, (since I was plagued with the same insomnia that I am now) I decided that if I was going to be awake and alert all night, I was going to do something productive with my time. So, I organised the next three years of my life, or at least, the scholastic portion of them. I’m really not a ‘plan ahead’ person, but this is one of those things that you have to plan, seeing as pre-requisites exist and all. I’ve picked out every single course that I’m going to take, and I’ve determined that instead of sociology, I’m going to minor in criminology.

Due to the courses I took last year – if I want to complete my undergraduate degree in four years – I have no option except minoring in some branch of sociology. I had planned on this, but then found that I really can’t stand it, and the future courses offered do not look like they fit my interests.

Luckily, criminology is a subsection of our sociology department, so I can go into that. The courses still don’t seem fascinating, but to tell the truth, not much that’s not in my major looks both interesting and useful. If I hadn’t eliminated linguistics from my options last year, I may have gone with that, and the drama and film courses look wonderful, but I’d likely never have a practical use for them.

Criminology is especially good for me though, because not only are there very few (I think it has the least of any minor) requirements, (which leaves me open to have more fascinating courses in psychology) but it may be useful for me if I go into criminal psychology and profiling (which I likely won’t, but it’s good to keep your options open, and it does sound somewhat interesting, though I imagine it’d have an extremely high burnout rate).

My psych mark was high enough to continue into honours, though only just barely, but I’m beginning to get the impression that that’s actually a pretty rare achievement. I’ve heard people say that the first year course gives the lowest marks, and that most people improve drastically as the years progress, so I hope that applies to me. I’m worried about how I’ll do in the statistics course, but I did take MDM 4U, so maybe I’ll survive.

I’m actually really glad that I planned my courses out this early in the summer, because (and I don’t think they actually say this anywhere, you have to sort of figure it out for yourself) you can’t apply for courses in your minor if you haven’t applied for that minor first, and that’s not something you can do before first year. So people who want to get into a course for their minor have to – at some point either during the school year or the summer – apply in person for a minor. There’s a roundabout way of doing it too: you have to go in to the registrar’s office and get a form to declare your major again, (you can print the form off if you want, but I’m pretty sure you can’t just mail it in, you have to submit it in person) and there’s a little, easy to miss, spot where you write in by hand what you want for your minor. I don’t know if that’s how they do it everywhere, but I know that you have to have a minor to graduate here, and if I hadn’t noticed that the courses I wanted required a minor to sign up for, then I wouldn’t have gone to search for how to apply for a minor, and I would have simply assumed that you take whatever courses you want to make up your minor and then somehow everything magically gets sorted out.

So I applied for my minor on Monday, and apparently it’ll be put through whenever. The woman I spoke to wouldn’t give me an estimate; she said that they’d get to it when they’d get to it, and that when it went through depended on how many people there were waiting before me.

I’m pretty sure that that’s fine for me, because there’s more than a month before registration begins and I expect it won’t take that long to get through the paperwork, but I feel really bad for the people who aren’t going to notice and are going to find out that they can’t register for the courses they want after registration has opened and people are already sniping each other to get in, or the ones who aren’t going to notice until the last minute, and are going to have to wait for their application to be put through, at which point the courses they want are going to be full.

So, I mean, unless there’s some huge, obvious sign that I missed, that probably causes some problems.

In other news, I went to see Star Trek with my parents that Friday night. I consider myself somewhat knowledgeable in the ways of Star Trek, seeing as it was one of my favourite shows when I was a kid, and even F mocked me a little for talking about how awesome TNG was in first or second grade. (See my ~~street~~ geek cred, that’s totally my geek cred, it may not be much, but you’ve gotta admit it’s there.)

Overall, I liked it. Actually, I thought it was pretty awesome, and I loved how they came right out and pretty much said, “This is an alternate universe, and what happened in the original version is still legit, but we’re playing in this realm now,” right in the movie. I hope that assuaged a lot of purist!fan hate.

I thought that there was a lot of great acting going on, and everybody had “aww, you’re so adorable!” moments which I didn’t think went into overkill. I also thought that there were enough little details similar to TOS to keep people happy and make it clear that this really was a Star Trek movie in spirit.

This thing happened though, because I went with my family and we took my dad. There’s this scene that I guess everybody has heard about by now, where Uhura and Spock kiss, and I think that as far as such scenes go, it’s one of the better ones I’ve seen in a while. The thing is, during that scene, my dad, really loudly, he said “Oh no!”

Now, I’m thinking that this is just because he’s really old, and kind of bashful, and he gets uncomfortable when any affection is shown onscreen. But, wow, it was awkward. And loud, very loud. I wonder what people thought.

Some people...

Wed, 06 May 2009 00:11:56 GMT

So I was going to go out tonight, but one friend suddenly found out that she could only go out during the day because of family circumstances, and the other apparently was not planning on telling me that the entire day was cancelled because she was devoting herself to her brother’s birthday party. Devoting yourself to your brother’s birthday is great, but I would appreciate it if you could actually tell people that the event planned around your schedule two weeks ago was cancelled. Other people do actually plan time to go out with their friends, not to avoid them, and may have done different things with their day if they had known that they wouldn’t be going out.

I need less self-centered friends. Things should be all about me all the time, obviously.

Exams are done though, and that’s good. I think I did really well on psychology. The Biology teacher actually sent out what amounted to a public apology for the exam, and they’re going to be doing some weird stuff to get a mark from it. They’ll be using either our labs or our midterm to make up 30% of the final exam grade. I am betting that a lot of shit went down.

In other news, a professor has been arrested for the possession, distribution and making of child pornography. As one may imagine, this has not gone over well. It looks like the evidence is pretty damn conclusive, so I’m glad he’s been tracked down.

He was going to retire next year; now his existence is being erased. The parts of the school that were associated with him are being renamed, and everything regarding him is being kept under wraps. As far as I’ve been able to find, the only papers reporting it have been from the nearby region, and I’ve only been able to find two different articles about it, though one of them was printed in two newspapers.

Most people I’ve spoken to know that a professor was arrested, but not what for. It’s probably not good for the reputation of a university to be known for employing a child molester for more than twenty-five years, but I think it’s probably the sort of crime that should be acknowledged, as long as the children involved can’t be identified. Maybe, if creeps hear that others are being caught, it’ll have some slight affect that dissuades them from committing similar crimes. The chance is probably small, but anything that goes toward preventing child-molestation has to help.

Cuts are for the weak!

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 21:15:36 GMT

On Thursday, I did my Linguistics and Writing exams.

I’m glad Writing is over, and I hope I did well. It has persuaded me to avoid online courses at all costs if given the chance.

Linguistics I’ll miss a little. The exam was pretty good; I think I did well. One question however was completely out of the blue, and I did not prepare for it at all. That question? Give three Latin phrases used in the Harry Potter books, and explain what they mean in English.

I am pretty glad that I am such a geek, because it was one of those “Only fandom can save you now!” moments. I called upon the fangirl within, and she was more than willing to supply the answers that I know are correct. Yeah, all that time spent searching for the deeper meanings of the spells that Rowling wrote so that I could better understand the world and feel more competent writing fanfiction paid off.

In short, spending countless hours obsessing over a fantasy world has helped me succeed in University. Fuck yes!

Then, yesterday, I did biology. I am not best pleased.

The exam was 100 multiple choice questions. That is reasonable; it’s a course for people who are not into biology, and there were over 900 of us in it (Though there had been something like 1800 at the midterm exam).

Now, this biology course, well, I think I’ve expressed my feelings about it before. Suffice it to say that it wouldn't convince anyone who took it that they actually like biology and should take further science courses. I don’t think the professor really wanted to teach us, and I don’t think the students really wanted to be there (I’ll be frank, I came almost every day, and sometimes there were only about 30 of us at lecture). I don’t think the effort was really there on anyone’s side.

Still, I expect a University poofessor (that spelling mistake is staying in because it made me giggle like a small child) to put forth a bit more effort than:

78. What does HPV stand for?
a) one
b) human papillomavirus
c) three
d) four
e) five

For a final exam, that seems a bit off. Now, I wouldn’t complain, because damn, that’s an easy mark, and ya need all the marks ya can get, but that was… only one of many problems with the exam.

We were, for example, given 500 review questions, 100 of which we were led to believe would be on the exam. About 20 of them were.

Now, maybe I’m spoiled, but I think that if you’re going to be nice enough to give people a few hours worth of questions, and tell them that the exam will consist of those questions, you should make sure that the questions do appear on the exam. You also should not tell your students that the material will only be from this semester if you’re going to ask questions about the material from last semester. That’s kind of a dick move.

I have reason to believe that the exam was, in fact, the exam from last semester with some (only some!) questions changed. The easy questions had one answer that was in any way reasonable, and four other answers that were vaguely familiar and would have made sense for questions that I can almost remember from the last exam. Some of the questions were, I am almost certain, verbatim, and in the same place that they were in the last exam. A very few were from the review, and a very, very few were extremely what the fuck you never mentioned this let alone taught it and it has nothing to do with the subjects we covered in this course and is this even a real question or did you just throw a bunch of scientific words that someone without a biology degree could have no hope of understanding together and call it a day?

So yeah, my personal theory is that he got smashed, and wrote the exam in a matter of minutes, taking last semester’s exam and copy-pasting a few new questions and answers onto it.

I think I passed? I mean, I remembered the questions from the last exam, and I’m sure I got the ones that were on the review right, but I don’t know if I answered last semester’s questions correctly, or if I guessed the right answers for the others.

I actually handed my test to the professor as I was walking out. He said to have a nice summer, and instead of the verbal violence I wanted to commit, I smiled, tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, and said “you too.”

Logically, I’m proud of myself, I’m the student here, and student entitlement is such a problem, and I must be in the wrong, but there’s this primal creature raging inside and screaming that leaping at someone while calling them a douchewaffle is sometimes for the best. I don’t know, I just don’t know.

I mean, it cost a hell of a lot of money to take this course, some effort from the teacher is to be expected.

I think it was a shitty course, with a shitty professor, and an extremely shitty exam, and I like biology.

Hopefully, as the years progress, the courses I take will get more specialised, and teachers will care about the content more, and I will never again have to deal with a professor who just doesn't give a damn.

Hopefully, hope is eternal.

Mousing

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 02:46:39 GMT

Oh my goodness, oh my. Étoile just brought me a mouse. My door was closed, so he tried to shove it under, and I kinda freaked out, even though I didn't scream, because I didn't see that it was from Étoile and it looked a bit alive and I wondered what the hell it was doing trying to get under my door because those things do not belong in this part of the house. Anyway, I opened the door more, and Étoile ran away with it, and I think he's eating it on the couch now which is pretty gross but I'm very proud of him and flattered that he brought it to show me. Oh my, oh my goodness.

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 02:41:08 GMT

Although I am sure they're all serious, I can't help but feel dubious about any exam hints professors give us on April Fool's.

So, umm, happy things.

Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:12:09 GMT

On the 17th, we got a kitten. Pretty kick-ass, right? He’s a black-and-white little boy, and, on Friday, he’s going to have his balls chopped off. Whenever I mention this to him, he purrs. I expect that he does not realise the enormity of the situation. He will.

He’s pretty small, and although his purr is really deep, his mew is really high. On Monday, when we took him in to get his shots, the vet said that he looked like he had a bit of Siamese in him. So, his body shape and his voice are Siamese-like, but his colouring is not.

He’s kinda funny looking. His nose goes straight down, and his markings make his face look a bit uneven. He pulls it off well though; he’s incredibly cute. He is also very, very affectionate. I have never met a cat this affectionate, though I’ve heard of them. He comes running to you when he sees you, and he always loves being touched. He also hasn’t tried to scratch any of us, and the only times he’s bitten have been because of mating behaviour, and that’s going to stop soon.

We named him Étoile. Which I guess is a girl’s name, but that’s okay, because he’s a cat.

I’ve been very adamant about this, so instead of declawing, we’re going to try Soft Paws on him. Apparently they sell them at PetSmart, though I’ve looked at the PetSmart website, and what they’re selling seems to be a knockoff. It may work just as well though.

So yeah, he’s pretty sweet. And he’s brave too; when something crashes down he comes to see what it was. Also, by the way he plays, we think he’ll be a good mouser, which is good.

I’m really glad we adopted him.

Edward

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 01:04:05 GMT

We put Edward down on the tenth. We took him in to the vet's, and the vet gave him too much sedative. He said it would take fifteen to twenty seconds, but it took less. Edward died in my arms, and I guess that's as good a thing as you can hope for.

Watchmen

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 00:47:57 GMT

I've been so psyched for Watchmen to come out, but due to recent events, I don't think I'm going to go see it on opening day. It's almost three hours long, and I don't think I want to leave him alone for that long. Oh well, it's not like I don't already know the plot, and it'll probably be more enjoyable to see it when the theatres are less full.

Edward

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:20:52 GMT

So it wasn’t pneumonia. My dog has cancer.

The vet said he had about a week to live; we’re going to have to take him in when it gets too bad.

It’s in his lungs, but it didn’t start there. We don’t know where it started. The vet said that this is a really bad city for it. He’s seen more cases since he came here than he ever saw anywhere else. He gave us some meds to alleviate the pain. Mother said that it was the stuff they use on humans too.

Mother’s still sort of in denial. She’s an adult, and doing what she needs to do, but she’s spent all this time denying things, and she’s not ready to stop yet. I think I resent her a little for that. I’d like to be in denial, but I can’t be. It’s just not me.

I found the way the doctor told us interesting. He was quick to say that it was cancer, but after that he took his time. I think it took over a minute to tell us that it couldn’t be treated, and even after that I had to ask how long he had to live.

When I got home I told father, and I think I probably didn’t do it in the way you’re supposed to. I just told him that “Edward has about a week to live; he’s got cancer.” but I don’t think my bluntness put him off. He touched my shoulder, and told me that he was sorry, and that he loved Edward and he loved me. Then he wandered off.

I’m glad that it was something unpreventable, something that even if I’d insisted we see the vet about earlier, nothing could have been done about. Even so, I really, really hate this. I’m like some pathetic child screaming “No! Don’t leave me!” I held him and cried as much as I could on the ride home. I don’t know what I’m going to be like without him. I’m scared.

This is not good.

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 01:24:53 GMT

Well, Edward's a bit too warm. He's avoiding the stairs, and when you get near him he whines a little. He didn't eat his dinner tonight. This is the first time he's ever not eaten his food.
He had better get better soon.

Caring is scary

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 03:13:20 GMT

So I’ve been feeling like absolute shit since last night because my dog got so sick that he wouldn’t even come up the stairs to sleep; he just lay there at the bottom, whining.

He’d been looking down for a while, but mother thought it would pass, and I wasn’t persistent enough to convince her to agree that we should take him to the vet. This changed obviously, and an appointment was made for today, while I would be at school.

I have an hour long break between classes, and I wrote this then:

I am glad that I had my phone on silent, because mother called halfway through class. I could call her back now, but I won’t. It’s like Schrödinger’s box, but I won’t open it.

Before I noticed that she had called me, I took the phone out and considered calling her. I decided not to because I still have another class to go to tonight and if she said that Edward was alright then I may think that she was lying to me to keep me calm, and if she said that Edward was not alright, then ... I may not keep calm.

I am somewhat comforted by the fact that she called me though, because she likely would not have called unless they were going to put him down right now, or to assure me that everything was alright.

He definitely wasn’t ill enough to need immediate euthanisation, so it’s likely that he will be fine. Hopefully he is having surgery or something and everything will be okay. I am afraid it is heartworm, but the symptoms probably don’t even match. I hope he is okay.

When I finally – after all classes and doing everything I could reasonably do short of loitering on campus – called her back, she told me that the vet thought it was going to be alright, “He was very good; he thinks it’s just pneumonia and maybe a bit of arthritis. He gave us ten days of antibiotics.”

Cue my ridiculously overjoyed response, “My dog has pneumonia!?”

Not something I thought I’d ever say with joy, but there you have it. He’s taken today’s pill without objection, and he’s managing the stairs sometimes. I am so relieved.

Reading Week

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:48:23 GMT

So, regarding that flood thing, the plumbers came on Monday. That’s this Monday, meaning that we’ve probably lost a few swimming pools worth of water down the drain, but hey, at least that’s over with. And it was, for the most part, flowing down the drain and not onto the floor. So that’s good.

It’s been reading week, and I fully expected to do some readings, but all I’ve actually done is sleep and get my BE mage up to level 69 with only 4 bars to go until level 70 and enough battleground marks to get all of the war mounts. Good to know I’m doing something with my life. Other people are going to Mexico.

Whatever.

Also, I found this which is, almost word for word, part of a lecture my linguistics professor gave. I don’t think he mentioned that he was directly quoting a comedian, and it’s long enough that if he didn’t, I think he should have. I wasn’t overly impressed by that guy at first, but I found this to be incredibly awesome, and I think he’s the guy behind “The Impotence of Proofreading” so good for him.

In other news, pretty much everyone I know is back to a status of generally healthy, so that’s awesome.

I don’t think I actually have anything else to say. I think that either tonight or tomorrow night I shall try to go on an adventure. I have had no excitement all week, and if I don’t have a story to tell by Monday I shall be very disappointed.

It wasn't that bad actually

Sat, 24 Jan 2009 05:18:17 GMT

HEY EVERYBODY, ~~PARTY~~ FLOOD AT MY HOUSE!!!