‘Twas the Night Before Finals
How quickly my sleeping schedule reverts back to “lol 4 AM is dinner time, 6 AM is bed time, 9:30 AM is time to get up” when it’s allowed to.
I must confess, though, that I’m already missing those early morning walks. I’m not missing getting up early, but I’m missing being out there in the dark when there’s no traffic on the streets and everything is dead quiet. It was enjoyable in a weird way.
I mean, I have to get up a little early tomorrow because the calc final starts at 3:30 PM and I want to give myself a good amount of “wiggle time” so that I’m not getting there at the last possible minute, but I won’t be getting up at 3:30 AM and leaving at 4.
So yeah.
*additional wild screeching*
I FEEL HYPER AND UNFOCUSED
(what else is new?)
It’s a good thing I already got my daily words in for NaNo, ‘cause holy hell. I can’t concentrate on anything today. So here’s some random stuff.
This site generates pictures of people who do not exist.
Here is a poster containing the names of 100 classic books. You can scratch off the names and reveal the covers of the books you’ve read. Super cool!
I’m not sure if I ever posted this on here (and I’m too lazy to check, haha), but here is a giant leaf I found in Vancouver during my first few months there back in 2009.
This is how my teeth feel today:
OKAY BYE
*wild screeching*
Holy crap, y’all, I might have some really exciting news soon (and, for once, it has nothing to do with my job).
As always, I don’t want to risk saying what it is in case it falls through, but there might be something exciting to announce at some point in the (near?) future.
WOOOOOOO
SNIFF SNIFF BITCHES
Hey, I wrote about something like this in a short story like six years ago, haha.
As you might expect, there has been a lot fewer studies and a lot less research done into smell and fixing smell issues than any of the other senses. That’s one issue why there really hasn’t been any development of this type of technology yet.
Another issue is that smelling is a lot more complicated, physically, than things like hearing or even seeing, just because it is a chemical sense and is a lot more “fine-tuned” in terms of its various components compared to vision or hearing.
But the idea that the concept is “on the radar” now, though, is pretty cool!
Maybe one day…
Day off!
Today I walked.
Then I went home.
It was glorious.
Tomorrow I’m going to stay home ALL DAY, which is going to be even more glorious.
(Sorry, I’m really burnt out and need some time where I don’t have to deal with people.)
Edit: hahahaha, oh my god.
Screaming starts at 1:00. Jesus would approve.
Green? Blue? Grue?
My eyes are pretty unremarkable, color-wise. But they do seem to change their main color(s) over the years. They used to be super brown, then super green. Now they seem to be trending towards blue, especially if you look at them in the sunlight. Example:
There’s always that brown ring around my pupil, but as you move further out, that’s definitely a blue-ish color.
Weird.
More Gross Feet! You’ve Been Warned
Look at this poor bastard. Look at what I’ve done to him.
My poor freaking feet, dudes. This is what walking 90+ miles a week since January 2017 has done to them.
VAYCAY
It’s “reading week” here, which is code for a week off from school. We didn’t used to have a whole week off in the fall semester, but they changed that because everyone is always so freaking sad/stressed this time of year.
So I get a week off this week, which basically means “you still have to do prep, but not teach.” Which is fine I guess.
Woot?
When Did You Arrive?
Here is an interesting article about days and times of birth in the United States. It’s interesting, as the article notes, how procedures like C-sections have skewed the distribution of times/days of births where, prior to these procedures becoming commonly used, babies were born pretty uniformly around the clock and through the week.
What day of the week and time of the day were you born? I was a Tuesday baby born (I think) at like 6:52 AM (like an hour before the C-section rush). I was not a C-section but I damn sure didn’t want to come out of there.
What about your birth month? I was a February.
Pretty cool!
Enneagram Rhapsody
Y’all. This is really good. That main guy singing has a good voice.
I used to have a book on the Enneagram (because of course I did); I liked to type people.
I also used to type as a 5, but I’ve just taken like six different online tests (super valid, I’m sure!) and half the time I get 5 and the other half I get 1. When I read the descriptions of both of them, though, I feel like 5 fits me better.
A few tests if you want to check it out: here, here, and here.
OH GOD MOUNTAINS
So I wish this showed up better in a picture, but you can see the mountains through that little break in the clouds in the middle.
Kinda cool.
Sorry, not much going on today other than our walk.
IT’S THE SPOOKY LIST, BITCHES
Hi. Let’s go.
- This is why I want to go to a Coldplay concert. I really hope they do at least one more tour and come somewhere vaguely close to Calgary (or, y’know, they come to Calgary).
- A hilarious watching/commentary of the Netflix movie “Tall Girl”
- The first minute or so of this is how I imagine the Calgary ScooterGangs roll.
- I have to invigilate a two-hour midterm tonight and then spend tomorrow morning grading it and I don’t want to do either of those things.
- Astros vs. Nationals in the World Series? I’ll take it. I’m cool with either of those teams winning.
- I love how I was like three days away from having my blog 100% up to date and then managed to screw it up. Classic Claudia.
- Check out this resting heart rate, yo.
- Cured egg yolks?! Holy crap, this looks so good.
I think that’s everything.
Broccoli Makes Memories
So for the first time since I’ve been with Nate, my mom was able to come up and meet us at Nate’s parent’s place near the border and spend Canadian Thanksgiving with us. It was super fun! It was also hard not to jump in my mom’s car and just go back to Moscow, haha.
ALSO, my mom made the broccoli cheese thing that we (my mom, dad, and myself) always used to have at Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was the first time I’d had it in a long time and holy hell I forgot how good it was.
I’ve mentioned the recipe for it in my “Master Recipe List” that I posted a while ago, but I’m going to link the blog with that document here, ‘cause I highly recommend trying it out. So tasty.
(“Broccoli Bake” on page 7)
YAY
A Wrinkle in Foot
Today’s walk was COLD and SNOWY and WINDY and I have TRANSFORMED INTO WRINKLEFOOT.
That is all.
Cheffing at Sea
Interesting!
This is probably going to sound really stupid/weird, but I’ve always kind of wanted to work at sea. Like, ever since junior high or so, I’ve had this weird fascination with wanting to work/live on a big ship. I have no idea why; it has zero correlation with any of my other dreams or desires. But it’s always kinda been there, and it’s a little embarrassing to admit for whatever reason (probably because I imagine the reaction to this dream being a judgmental look and a “pfft, you? Please.”).
So yeah.
I freaking love Max Scherzer
That is all.
DO YOU EVER FEEL
LIKE A PLASTIC BAG
DRIFTING THROUGH THE BREEZE
HAUNTING THE U OF C
That bag flew around for like half an hour out there. THE SNOW IS BLOWING IN, Y’ALL.
Winter Walking: September Edition
It’s FREAKING SNOWING RIGHT NOW and I am NOT READY FOR THIS WEATHER.
It’s supposed to get worse over the weekend, too, so that’s great.
So in the spirit of “I need to pretend to look on the bright side of things unless I want to shoot myself in the face,” let’s list all the pros of winter walking.
- I use my on-ear headphones as a way to keep my ears warm, which means I get to listen to music when I walk (I don’t walk to music in the summer).
- I have to wear a coat, which helps hide my ugly body from the world.
- I don’t have to wear sunscreen (and thus don’t have to hose off in the bathroom once I get to campus).
- There are fewer people out on the sidewalks/river path due to coldness/bad weather.
- You burn slightly more calories in the cold than you do in other temperatures.
…I think that’s it.
So yeah. Things are supposed to improve by the end of the coming week, but it’s hard to see beyond the FREAKING SEPTEMBER SNOWSTORM right now.
Random Poop n’ Stuff
I can’t call this the September list ‘cause I DID THAT ALREADY ASLDKFJASLDKFAJF
- I ran 5k today. That’s absolutely nothing when it comes to actual distance (a reminder that I walk 15 miles a day; 5k is 3.1 miles), but it is the farthest I’ve run since I got hurt back in 2017. I’ve run 1.5 miles or 2 miles or even 2.5 miles, but I’m pretty sure this is the first time I’ve done 5k. It felt amazing. I’m glad my cardiovascular endurance is still there.
- This is haunting.
- Man, lemme tell ya…the more unlikely the two songs will match in a mashup, the better a mashup is.
People ask me what kind of music I like.
This.
This kind of music.
(That Slipknot/Timberlake one is a legit banger)
- Nate had to go to a funeral in BC (I couldn’t go ‘cause I have to work tomorrow) and I just spent about half an hour crying about as loud as humanly possible because I finally could do so without completely freaking him out. I think I’ve been holding that in for a long time. It felt good, but I’m also sad now.
Panic! In the Crisco
I did a thing and I’m not going to mention what it was yet ‘cause I bet it’s not going to work out but if it does it’ll be cool so yeah I’ll let you know if it does.
(Run-on sentences make me cool, right?)
Nostalgia Trip 2019
It was like 400 degrees in Moscow today (slight exaggeration), so I decided to walk around the city instead of go on the Moscow/Pullman trail (since there’s no shade and no water and a lot of heat and sun out there).
[Side note: it is quite difficult to walk 15 miles in Moscow. I did have to go on the trail for about three miles because I ran out of places to walk in the city. I could have stayed within city limits, yes, but it would have involved a lot more looping.]
After I’d wandered around the east side of town for a bit (why the hell is Mountain View still lacking a sidewalk that goes all the way from the highway to the pool? MADNESS), I decided to walk through campus. I haven’t walked through campus in quite a while, since any time I walk in Moscow, it’s either on the trail or in the UI rec center (which is still the best rec center at any university, fight me).
I was getting a nice, warm nostalgia bath as I wandered around amongst the buildings I’d spent so much time around/in. But then I went into the Ag Sci building and was hit with the mother of all nostalgia waves.
Lemme ‘splain. Both of my parents worked in the Ag Sci building for the majority of my life. When I was in elementary school and we had a day off for religious reasons or what have you, my mom would bring me into campus and I’d hang out in Ag Sci. I think I sat in on my dad’s classes a few times, too (just coloring in the back of the room, haha).
Once I started going to school at UI, my dorm was literally across the street from the Ag Sci building, so I’d always go visit my parents (particularly my mom) when I was done with classes and headed back to the dorm. I also used the Ag Sci computer lab all the time before they finally shut it down. Heck, I taught statistics in that big auditorium room (the same one my dad always taught in).
In short: I spent a lot of time in that building.
So walking through it today for the first time in quite a while (at least three years, maybe longer) was a super nostalgia trip. Even just walking down a flight of stairs – holy crap.
Sorry, this blog has absolutely no purpose. I just wanted to mention the nostalgia. I know nobody cares.
Eigenblogger 