Moving

So this past week I've been in the process of moving and unloading and unpacking my stuff into my cousin's house in Oro Valley (though, technically, it's his mom's house, and she lives with him, and my mom is moving in, too, but saying I'm moving in with my cousin sounds a lot cooler than I'm moving in with my mom and my aunt.) It's been pretty painless, but it has become blatantly apparent that I am a huge packrat who refuses to throw anything away. My room is already filled to the gills, I still have 5 boxes of stuff to unload, and I still have a bunch of knick-knacks and miscellaneous crap still at the old apartment. We haven't even gone through the kitchen or that closet in the hallway. Ugh. This is gonna be a long holiday.

Grade-wise things are going better than expected. I was totally not anticipating an A in my solid mechanics class. Maybe I just kicked butt on the final, I don't know. My guess is that he lowered his rubric for grading so more than 3 people would get an A in that class of 125. I'm still waiting on my fluids class, that evil, vile, malicious, devious, meanie of a class, and my seminar class SHOULD be an A after all, but that has yet to been processed (I emailed the prof, and the mistake was on his part).

But I have found time to be human. Went with Patrick and his friend Ben to hang out for a bit, get a bite to eat. When we get this place all cleaned up and pretty I'll throw some kind of happy fun time before school starts hopefully. We have a pool table, a big screen for movies/games, a TV room with lots of free crap on the digital cable (even karaoke!) and a pool for any polar bears willing to brave the chill of the air.

The neighborhood is nice, but way too quiet. All the houses look almost identical. This group of houses looks exactly like the group across the street. It's pretty bland. But the thing I love the most is gonna have to be the area. You go outside your house, look at the night sky without the halo from Tucson, you hear a couple coyotes howling from miles away, and you think yeah, life is good, if only for a short while.

What? Hard work pays off?

Finals grades, and expectations:

AME 301- Stupid Easy Math class. Make me go to school at 9 in the morning..
Expected: A
Got: A

AME 324A- The first half of the one-two punch of doom.
Expected: B with 70% certainty, C otherwise
Got: A! Holy crap! How did that happen?

AME 331- The second half of the one-two punch of doom
Extecped: B hopfully
Got: A!! How? The Engineering gods must be looking out for me.

AME 460- Didn't like it as much as I had hoped. Didn't work as hard on it as I should've.
Expected: B
Got: B. Ok.

AME 495S- How is this class not hard? It's a seminar!
Expected: A
Got: B?! WTF! Okay, wait, the prof says he messed up and it should be an A, but it hasn't changed yet on student link...

MATH 464- Material pretty straightforward
Expected: A
Got: A

PSYC 101- Pretty simple, freshman level difficulty
Expected: A
Got: A

Glad that one's over. Now I get to move!

guitar hero stuff

'Tis the Season?? Already??!

I'm not sure why, but I cannot get into the holiday spirit this year. Maybe it's because I still have four finals this week, of which two of them are crucial that I do well on. Maybe it's because I'm either studying my butt off or moving all my stuff from one room into another room one box at a time. Maybe it's just that this year feels more commercialized than ever. Just because everyone says that it's Christmastime doesn't actually make it Christmastime. It was even in the 50's here for a high (which is seasonal here in AZ) and I can't get into the mood. Am I just a big Scrooge?

The only thing that has remotely reminded me to be festive is the distinctive ring of the Salvation Army people outside of all the stores. That's it. I can't get into the lights or the stockings or the giant inflatable snowman globes with an internal fan that blows the little pieces of Styrofoam all over, making it look like it's snowing. Is this what the holidays are all about now, trying to show off one's joy more than the next person (I'm happier than you, dammit!) Now I'm not trying to say that it's wrong to enjoy the holiday, but why can't we have this kind of enthusiasm the rest of the year? And don't get me started on gifts. I don't know what I'm getting my cousin, and frankly I'm glad I don't know. I don't want these last couple weeks to be a mad dash of hints and suggestions. I wanted to get him a Transformers poster, but my mom said no. Yeah, I'm short on cash, but that doesn't mean I can't find something I think he'd like. Well I know he would like a new cordless drill, but that's out of my budget range.

For that matter, I don't really want anything for Christmas. I know I've got a few sets of clothes coming, and my aunt's been talking about maybe getting me an ACTUAL computer desk (what I use now used to be her old dining table) but the fact of the matter is I don't need anything. I'm happy with what I got. Sure, the newer things are always shinier, prettier, and more technologically advanced, but so what? What matters the most is that a video game is fun and that I can clear reception when I'm talking on the phone. People get bogged down by the bells and whistles and forget the important thing: the people who tried their best to please you with the gift. I would just like to hang out with my friends for a while and have some fun. That would be an awesome Christmas gift, the one that's not a gift at all. And don't worry, I bought myself a CD for Christmas, so I'm good.