All this music is giving me a headache

I think I need to give it a rest. I need to give my homework a rest, writing papers a rest, music a rest...myself a rest.

Aside from that, my day has been good. I got to Adv. Comp. on time today, and although nervous about not having a partner to trade papers with (since Melissa was not there), but it all worked out well since Stephen was willing to trade papers with me for peer review (thank goodness he's good at grammar; I wouldn't have been able to catch half of the errors he caught). I graded his paper too and either it's pretty much spotless or I'm just not that good at detecting things.

I could have skipped sociology though. It doesn't seem like we are going to go over anything new before the exam. The only thing I really learned was the shocking fact that at least 50% of Americans are under middle class (and hence, struggling somewhat to just make ends meet and even then, many still live in debt and destitution).

Stat class involved going over our exam. Imagine my surprise when I turned my test over to see the "100, Excellent" marked on it! I couldn't believe my good luck! Seriously, I couldn't believe it. I could have sworn that my grade was an 84 the last time I checked it in the online gradebook. Was it graded correctly? Had it not been for my overwhelming relief at the thought of finally doing well in a statistics class, I would have questioned my teacher as to the authenticity of the grade I had received.

Once I came back to the dorm, Melissa and I had a hour-long discussion about writing and literature . We rambled on and on about R.L. Stine, J.K. Rowling, Christopher Paolini, and J.R.R. Tolkien. All in all, good stuff. I was learning a lot and was glad to have someone to listen to my viewpoints too. Sadly, I had to cut the discussion short since I had an advising appointment at 1:40 p.m.

Raymark--he was my advisor. Melissas had been ecstatic to discover that and she dared me to tell him about his nickname at the end of the appointment. I told her I would.

1: 33 p.m. A few minutes early, but hey, that's always better than being late, I suppose. I entered his office and greeted him. Or rather, I stood outside his office and whispered, "Professor" through the crack in his door until he noticed me. It didn't take me long. Apparently, he had heard me on the first try since he turned around and told me to come in. I glanced at him as I entered. Hmm...kind of different since the last time I met him. He didn't look as tall now (probably on the account that he was sitting down) and he didn't seem as pink as usual. Paler, actually, but not a sickly looking pale. More like a vanilla flavored yogurt pale.

We exchanged a "How are you?" before I sat down and glanced around his office while he looked up my degree progress report. He had a lot of pictures of his kids (including the same picture of his son dressed in a lion costume as his desktop background). He also had many family pictures (one where his wife was photographed as well), and I noticed a picture to the far left of Professor Raymark in yellow shorts. (It looked as if he was running a marathon.) That's classic, I thought.

Finally, the meeting got under way and I was given plenty of good recommendations (among them were the recommendations to take social psychology or personality psychology should I not be able to register for the elusive Communications class). I also asked him the two questions and was surprised to find that my major required neither an internship or a specialization. He tole me that most people do an internship anyway but it's usually within the context of an applied class. The specialization I wouldn't need unless I was planning on going to graduate school (which I wasn't).

At the end of the meeting, I thanked him, stood up, and just before I left, I carried out Melissa's dare and told him how Melissa and I called him Professor Raymarkable. To my surprise, he actually laughed and said that Raymarkable was his younger brother's nickname at his workplace. Raymark was an easy name to manipulate, he said.

I left feeling thoroughly happy and was heading over to the amphitheatre to take pictures of people sleeping when I suddenly stopped. My purse wasn't with me! Oh dear...I thought as I hurried back to Brackett. Maybe I had left it in Raymark's office? I checked--not there. Great, I had left it back in my dorm then. Seeing as how I could do nothing further, I wandered sadly over to the reflection pond and sat for a while. The shade was chilly however so I moved over to the bench in front of the vending machines. On my way there, some guy on the second floor of the Daniel Hall balcony waved to me. I couldn't for the life of me figure out who he was. He was on the phone and I was pretty sure it was a white guy, but that was all I could tell for sure. Oh well, I shrugged, sitting down and plugging my earphones back in.

I sat there for a while enjoying my music and observing the people walking past (especially their shoes. It's weird but I pay a lot of attention to people's shoes). Matt Wilson walked by once (also on the phone) and waved hi to me as well. Aside from that, I didn't sit for long before somebody came up and scared the living daylights out of me. (And he didn't even do anything.)

"Hey Craig," I said, unplugging myself long enough to talk to him. He asked me why I was sitting here and I said that I was waiting for Melissa to come out of class so I could talk to her, but then I had remembered that Melissa had skipped class today so sadly, I was waiting for no one. Craig laughed. I then told him about the guy on the second floor (who was still up there and still on the phone, no less) that had waved hi to me. Craig looked up and told me that it was none other than Corey Buckley. Yes, fur hood-wearing Corey Buckley. Geesh, I never would have been able to tell. After that, we had a fun time talking about people behind their back. Professor Conway walked by at one point and I shouted hi as he walked passed. He turned around, confused for a while. Then he saw me, gave a sort of half wave, and said hi before he turned around and continued walking. I spent the whole time laughing and Craig just kept saying what a mean person I was. Unfortunately, I had to go to French class soon afterwards.

"We should do this more often," I told Craig as I got up.

"Do what?" he asked.

"Sit here and talk about people while they're still in earshot."

He gave another laugh as he headed back towards the dorm and I headed up the stairs.

French class was hard today. We had to conjugate...verbs. The good thing was I got to sign up to be a prompter for the poetry declamation on November 8th and Zan told us a funny joke.

"Le plus bel homme est...John McCain." That caused a riot.

Once French was done, I came back to the dorm and was about to read for anthropology when Melissa invited me to go to the Multi-cultural lounge in Hendrix with her, Tyler, and Craig.

I had to pack up so she told me to go to Craig's room when I was done. Apparently, I should have been in Craig's room anyway for when I came in five minutes later, Melissa was sprawled on the floor in pain.

"My boob's been ripped off!" she wailed. I looked around, expecting to find a mutilated chest appendage lying bloodied somewhere on the floor. No such thing. Apparently, Tyler was giving Melissa a piggy back ride and when he tried to throw her, she ended up on the floor with an injured boob instead. Ahhh, classic.

Craig came in soon after that and we had to explain the whole thing all over to him. I actually regret doing that for he wanted me to use the buddy system and "check up" on Melissa. I vehemently refused. The thought of touching girl boobs was just...ick.

Finally, when all was righted, we took the long walk to the Hendrix Student Center. I passed the time buytellingaig about Zan's joke and then spent the rest of the time annoying him by repeating everything he said in the form of a long, drawn-out question.

"That is one fat squirrel!"

"Squirrrrel?

After that, I...died.