Thursday, April 28, 2005

Dear God...

Thank You. I know that even with all of my creative writing expertise, I cannot fully express the extreme depths of my gratitude towards You for helping me today. I finished all of my exams except for one, which was Anthropology 230 - Science and Technology. Now, I sat at the front of the class every time. You must have seen me. I paid attention (most of the time) and even took notes for a couple of disabled students. I tried very hard in that class.

I got 64% on the mid-term. I tried even harder.

I got 68% on my research paper. Yes, it's an improvement, but only the barest kind that is really more painful than encouraging.

With all of my exams coming up, I was only left with a day and a half to 1) Copy down all the notes I'd made from the three textbooks 2) Highlight all the notes, 3) Read all of the notes made for that class so that I'd be ready for my final final, Anthropology. I stayed holed in my room for a day and a half, reading until my eyes stung, highlighting until my fingers hurt, changing my position every hour so that my muscles wouldn't atrophy, and got up an hour earlier than usual to get all of my studying done.

You already know that I prayed to you when I sat down to take that exam, all jittery and bleary-eyed as I was with terror and horrible certainity.

I prayed for mercy.

You gave me a miracle.

I don't mean that in the goopy "I believe I can Fly" miracle - I mean, look at my grades! I had a 66% average in that class!

I finished the exam in thirty-five minutes. Thirty-five minutes that included my going over the answers twice to confirm how incredibly, miraculously, unbelievably easy the exam was.
And I have you to thank. I don't know how many strings you had to pull in my professor's head to get him to write such a simple exam, but you did it, and I thank you.

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

School's Out, Coffee's On...

Well, not quite - school isn't out until Friday, and I don't go full time at the Second Cup until after my exams are finished. But most of my important extracurricular activities have come to an end, at least for the year.

The Gateway: They had their last issue today, a spoof of Rolling Stone called Raging Bone. Understandably, but hilariously offensive. They didn't publish my article about rockers fighting for a cure to COOOV (Choking On One's Own Vomit), the #1 cause for premature rock star death, but in truth I can't compete with stories like Rock Back Franz Ferdinand Assasinated in Sarajevo.

Baka: Over for the summer -we watched some old episodes, and some news ones. We watched Hajime No Ippo ("Fighting Spirit" to American distributors), about a shy bullied teenager who blossoms into a shy bullied featherweight champion boxer. This episode was filler - about all the fame poor shy Ippo gets from the ladies (and the men), and the guilt that his most ardent fan feels when he remembers how badly he used to pick on Ippo, before Ippo developed a fantastically strong right punch.

We also watched the last episode of Scrapped Princess, which I didn't really watch - I came in when they were showing the last episodes, so I really had no interest. The Scrapped Princess Pacifica has been prophesized to end the world on the 16th birthday, so of course everyone's out to kill her - but she survives in the end, and so does the world, but as to how I'm not sure as I was not paying attention.

We watched a new show called Club-to-Death Angel Dokuro (I think) - which is about a 12-year-old perv who gets visited by Angel Dokuro, who reveals that 20 years in the future he will be a pedophile, and unwittingly create a technology that will keep all women from physically aging past the age of 12. Dokuro has been sent to beat him to death (with a giant lead club loaded with spikes called the Excaliborg), but she thinks that he's just so darn cute that she resurrects him every time she takes off his head. Very cartoonish Kill-Bill style violence, and lots of fanservice. Funny, but I wouldn't want to watch it in front of my mother.

Another show was Speed Grafter (or something to that effect) - which was basically a porn anime without the porn, about a photographer who sneaks into a meeting of a secret society - something about finding the secret of Estascy, and how this photog is discovered to have some Euphoria Effect - no nudity, just a really sloppy kiss and some scantily-dressed women in bondage.

Still, working at the coffee place isn't going to be so bad. It's very easy, the pay is good (standard) and there's lot of people to talk to.

I've also started reading the Manolo Shoe Blog recently, and I've even made some comments.