So... I just spent the past... seven fucking hours reading 200 chapters of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles. Way to utilize that study time, me. orz So yeah, my place is messy, I've not done a damn thing that's been productive since... Thursday, and I feel awful about it... but at the same time, my imagination is satiated, so... *sigh* I can't justify it in my mind no matter what I do, but at least I've gotten that out of the way (I hope) and I can concentrate on studying for the rest of the week. =_=;

So James and I will have been officially "together" for 3 years at the end of this month... but we actually started liking each other during AX'06 (haha, nerdy I know, but that's what we are!). Kind of crazy to think we've been with each other for so long and we're still so happy together... I know that's more of the exception than the standard nowadays, so I'm really grateful. ♥ I know I'm a better person because of him, and I hope that I can claim to have the same effect on him ^_^ I'm so proud of him--and of us. Hehe, I'll probably be mushy like this for the next few weeks since it's our 'anniversary' so to speak--yay for functional relationships :D

Making something on animoto to commemorate the occasion so to speak (and procrastinate doing my lab for a little longer, hehe), but it's taking forever--if I wanted to be less lazy I suppose I could steal James' laptop and make something using iVideo... maybe I'll do that after the test next week ;)

EDIT: Ta-dah! I will play around with it a little bit and put more text in there, but you get the point. ♥

95% on my Bio exam as well. Apparently Valkyria Chronicles really WAS a reward for doing well on my tests... :) Right now I have all A's with the POSSIBLE exception of my Chem 2 lab, which makes me sad panda since I kind of want to TA for it. :P We shall see... I don't mean to brag on every online profile I have, but it feels good to know that I went back to school for a good reason AND I'm kicking ass while I'm at it. Plus I'm remembering how much joy there used to be in learning science... so all in all, I'm more than halfway through the semester and I'm having a blast! (Well, except for the days right before the test... ^_^;)

Just found out I got a 95% on my 2nd Chem exam. HURRAH!! ♥ And no, I'm not done with my other lab due tomorrow yet... lol. ;) Now that half of the semester is over there's a small amount of security regarding an A overall... can't rest on my laurels though, gotta keep truckin'! >.<;;

Okay, I'm an absolute sob and need to stop getting so attached to fanfics... they're just FANFICS, I know I know I know, but sometimes they're so GOOD T_T One of the stories I follow just made me cry I WOULD NEVER CRY BECAUSE OF A FAN-MADE STORY.

Lol, who am I fooling? I'm the biggest nerd EVER. ;)

Tentative plans are to visit Joel in the first week of August... my dad off-handedly mentioned that one of his friends owns a timeshare apartment in Manhattan that we'd be able to use if we wanted to go to NYC... omg WAT?! Now I'm SUPER excited!! Now all I need is to save up some money so I can spend a week there without going into credit overload... :P Plus I need to wait until after Joel reports in to his superiors on base to see when he starts training... but wow, how great would that be? I know we'd have a ton of fun!! :)

Sooooo I should be doing my other Chemistry post-lab report right now but I'm delaying it instead, as you can see... time to suck it up and take care of it I guess, and then maybe have an hour or so to play Valkyria Chronicles before I go to bed... fabulous game btw, except for the localized subtitles that sometimes have nothing whatsoever to do with the actual Japanese. -_-; Good thing I can scrape by on Japanese enough to get the point when it deviates. But it's a really fun game with a ton of options! I could go on for a while... the gameplay is great, but let me reserve my gushing until I see more of the story mmkay :)

Kind of weird, thinking that only my mom and grandmom are here in CO now; my dad divides his time evenly between here and the Philippines and my brother is on his way to Boston as we speak. (Well, he's probably stopped driving for the night, but you get the point.) Either way it makes me pretty sad to think that we're not all in one place anymore... I know that's silly, since a lot of families have been separated for worse reasons and for longer amounts of time, but our family is so close that I can't help but feel a bit of a loss at the distance. Obviously it's not a huge deal, and it's not like Joel and I saw each other EVERY DAY OMG--but yeah, it'll be sad to not just call him up and hang out whenever I'm bored. lol :) Wow, I went from sound speculative and serious to more or less calling my brother a boredom shield... ;)

Anyhoo, I know my mom is having a hard time with it and she's super-stressed about her CFA exam to boot, so I'll try to remember to call her more often to be supportive. (Mentioning this on here in the hopes I don't forget... I don't mean to be callous sometimes but I do get wrapped up in what's going on in the Kris-verse and forget to check in on everyone else... :P)

I'm excited for my little brother though--Boston should be a pretty kick-ass place, and I can't wait to visit him and have him show me around :D

So I posted a little rant on fb about how people who tip 5% are inconsiderate, cheap jerks and they should stay at home if they don't have the money to tip much less eat out, and someone points out that "in some countries people consider tipping an insult." That comment really bothered me--hello, I KNOW they don't tip in other countries. I've been around Europe and around parts of Asia and I know that. What bothers me is--this is effing AMERICA okay? That is the CONVENTION around here! I don't know if this is common knowledge but a lot of waitstaff earn less than $5.00/hr--they work off commission, a.k.a. tips. Whether it's a pooled tip then split or just 'you earn it you keep it...' either way, tipping $4.00 for a $75.00 check is just not right. I know these people have lived in the States their whole lives, and I'm sure they understand exactly how much they should be tipping. Someone else mentioned "well if the service isn't good..." to which I say--the service better be fucking horrible before I tip that low, because that's just mean. How can you not be insulted by low tip? That's usually a reflection of how you felt your service was throughout the course of your meal. UGH!! I think people who argue this point have never been on waitstaff...

I'll say it again. IF YOU DON'T HAVE THE MONEY TO TIP, THEN YOU SHOULDN'T BE EATING OUT! I don't care what ____ country does, I don't care that it's a recession and everyone deserves to eat out once in a while. If you eat out, remember that there are people busting their chops to make sure your order is correct, that it's served in as timely a manner as possible, and that you never get thirsty. Wouldn't YOU want a decent tip, especially if you only earn $3.00/hr?

And I understand that sometimes service sucks... if they don't seem bothered by how unhappy you are with your service then by all means they don't deserve much of your money. But if they're apologetic about it, have some mercy at least--a lot of the time things are out of our hands. :P

[/rant]

Driving down to the Springs to hang out with the fam for Joel's last day in CO for a while... weird to think that my little brother is moving to Boston and won't be a 30-min. drive away. If you know me, you know me & Joel are pretty close and lived together for 2 years during college due to shitty complications with our former roommates (thinking about it still makes me angry to this day, so I'll leave it at that). So it's obvious that I'm going to miss him a lot, but only now am I starting to get a little sad about it... :P He & my dad will be driving to Boston tomorrow (so they can take his car--the Air Force already picked up all of his shit a few days ago and it's there waiting for him), and I know my mom is going to be all sad and depressed, so yaayyyy...

I keep telling myself I'm going to change the layout of this LJ to something more personal, but I get so lazy on the weekends... :P

So yeah, I am officially halfway through the semester now. I am intentionally NOT doing anything productive today because I was flipping the fuck out before my tests and I need a mental break. Well, I suppose I could clean... that's always the thought in the back of my head =_=; Good programming, mom, Jesus...

Something funny and stupid--found out that I would've had an A on my first Bio test IF I HAD NOT SKIPPED A QUESTION. Yep, in between two questions, I just didn't answer one and it cost me points. Fabulous. :P Makes me feel better in a way because that means I knew more about the material than I had assumed (I knew the answer to the question, depressing right?) but in a way stupider because I SKIPPED A GODDAMN QUESTION ON A TEST. WTF. Oh well, I don't think an 89 will hurt my overall average... =_=; (...even though I would've had a 93 instead. AUGH! STOP THINKING!!)

Yeah, this is why I need to be away from school for a little bit... although I'm tempted to churn out my lab reports for Chem today so I won't have to worry about them next week... ~_~

Okay, the subject of this effing entry is LAZY DAY so I will keep it a LAZY DAY. I will eat something completely horrible for my system just for shits (like a delicious Totino's pizza, which is sitting in my freezer as we speak) and play Valkyria Chronicles (which I just bought last night to celebrate mid-way semester time) until my head explodes. Well... I only have until 4:30, when I have to head out to Golden Panda, so I better hop to it :P

When I finish this semester at the end of July, I will be extremely relieved... I knew it would be a lot of work, but the majority of my time has been spent slaving over lab reports and write-ups, which I did NOT expect. Four labs a week, aaaaaauuugghhhh... every student's worst nightmare. Labs stress me out--what are they expecting? Did I cover every point? Am I being graded for my solution/ppt yield? My values obtained experimentally? Does my explanation SOUND like I understand or is it just muddled? @_@

I think I would have been a lot happier just taking lectures without labs, but most of the people I've met have been during my labs, and they're all really great. I don't think I've made best friends or anything, but I really like the attitude on campus here... everyone's so driven to do well and learn... it's nice, and definitely a change from my alma mater :P

So. Two tests on Thursday morning and afternoon, respectively. I think the A's are going to my head and I'm getting cocky because I'm not freaking out yet... or maybe it's because I know the material pretty well. I've spent a lot of this past weekend studying, whereas prior to my last test I was being super-social... hmm... ^_^

Went to Hapa today--took James out since he's having a horrible rotation right now and I'm super stressed with all this crap that's due on a constant basis and tests every other week. It would've been great if the service wasn't slow and careless... next time I'll just save myself the trouble and eat at the sushi bar since I'm such a stickler for fast, efficient service. I just tend to be that type of waitress myself, so not seeing others hustle for my dime is kind of annoying, I guess... hahaha ;)

Okay, enough stalling--gotta go to bed so I can get up early tomorrow and start drilling my Chem problems! :3

It's not that I like to delight in the fact that you're wrong, I am just wrong so often when we discuss things that it is a relief to my ego once in a while for me to see you make a mistake. I don't gloat over it or anything, and usually the moment comes and goes, but it's not exactly easy to try to excel in an area that you are so naturally good at. It feels like you get these concepts in a snap and I'm groping in the dark sometimes. So the next time you get unhappy at the fact that I point out that you're wrong and I sound not unhappy about it, just remember that you're smarter than me, and you'll feel better all over again. :P

On another subject--wtf? Apparently my mom doesn't believe that I can go for medical school or whatever. Nice to know that I'm surrounded by votes of the utmost fucking confidence. Whether I want to or not is still up in the air, but I'm certainly not going to get anywhere with this kind of shit floating around. I'm sure it's not meant in a malicious way, but I feel so belittled sometimes... I always told myself that I'm smarter than the jobs I settled for out of college, but with negative energy like this around--whether it's not believing I can do it or by telling me that I don't have to bother because I'm better at other things anyway--it makes me feel like I'm dumber than a doorknob. :(