Saphhous

By the way, all the good stuff is on the family blog.

Zidane headbutts in final

It just dawned on me that0there is something very surreal about my daily life. I have gotten used to it and everything seems very easy and normal, but to someone on the outside, it probably looks a little insane. Why an epiphany now? Well, for over a year now I have known it is much easier to do homework in the morning when everyone's asleep than to do it in the evening when everyone is clamoring for attention.

So, here I am, at barely 6 a.m., coffee in hand, doing stoichiometry problems for chemistry. It's definitely not the stereotypical college scene.

In more interesting news, I applied to be an Apple campus rep. One guy I work with just started and it seems pretty cool. I can't make a link from the treo, so until I edit the post, the link is: http://www.apple.com/education/campusreps/. I think Mike Baer should do it.
(Sent from Treo.)

So, here I sit, pecking away at my treo instead of studying for my chemistry test. I set up an address to which I can email entries, but this is the first time I've tried it. So, if you can see this, it must have worked right.

The treo is pretty freaking sweet. It' a 650: I had been talking about wanting one (there just a little out of my price range) when my mother-in-law got one. I tried not to be too jealous. But, after a few months, her boss decided to put her on the company cell plan, so they had to buy her the sprint version of the same phone. And she, being the generous person she is, decided instead of making a few hundred bucks selling her other one on ebay, she gave it to me. The rep that did the number transfer remarked that it was like "having someone just hand you $400."

And I have been tearing this thing up, too. I still hit the wrong buttons all the time, but I'm getting there. I'm looking for a free AIM client for it, but no luck yet.

My recommendation for you technophiles out there is to get one of these ASAP.

(Sent from Treo.)

Summer School

It's a dilemma -- I don't know if summer school sucks because it's during the summer, of if I like it because the classes are short and I'm only taking one at a time (a la Cornell College). I had a three week class on the history of Jazz, which my sorry tone-deaf, musically-inept self managed to pull off an A. It's hard to screw up with the class is only three weeks long. There's no time to slack off, get behind, or forget anything. So three credit hours in three weeks -- not bad. Now I'm taking CHEM 101, which is really the most ridiculous thing I'll ever do in my life. Why? Because this was my math/sci courseload in high school: algebra I and II, geometry, pre-calc, AP Calc, intro chem, chem I, physics I, AP Physics. (Along with bio, etc., but you get the point.) We've been learning about conversions and scientific notation. I'm loving it. The professor is actually wonderful; he does a lot of demos and elementary and middle schools to get students interested in science, so he's gotten good at being entertaining. The second day of class involved an extended demo complete with accompanying song. This class runs 5/30 to 6/30, and then I'm off till Aug. 21.

On that fall semester note, they processed financial aid for the school year. I got offered a $22,000 package altogether -- funny, because tuition is just over $6,000 a year. Sweeeeeet! So I turned down all the loans, and just kept the scholarships and grants -- I still ended up with $10,000 in aid. Plus, Dylan has a very similar package. He's supposed to graduate this fall, but we're talking about sticking him in a class or two in the spring so that we can get his spring aid, too. And, I should get a comparable amount the year after, which makes going a fifth year much more rewarding. It'll all go to paying off credit cards and other bills to improve our credit score, and the rest will go into the house building fund. Plus, I have a $1,000 scholarship from my department on its way to my bank. I guess we'll start paying some interest on the loans we already have, since it took getting married to get the good money.

Yesterday a colleague informed me I could not start a sentence with the word "and." This has been nagging me ever since -- that is just some arbitrary rule that Strunk or somebody made up. It is only applicable to those styles of writing that depend more on the form than the words themselves. The adherence to form is the style, I suppose.

But don't people consider writing a form of art? You can be a "writer" or an "artist" or a "musician," which sets you free of all those silly rules that the other people follow. Good heavens, I'm not even sure the last time I wrote a piece that didn't have a sentence starting with "and." And they were published! (See, there's one!) People have paid me to start sentences with "and"!

Why did they make up that rule, anyway? I don't even know. All I recall is that I was told not to do it when I started writing in elementary school. But sometime in high school, as my own style developed and I began writing professionally (with a heavy dose of crappy poetry on the side inspired by ee cummings), all those rules went out the window. I write one-sentence paragraphs all the time, abuse em-dashes, hate parentheses, etc.

In fact, I probably drive my teachers crazy, because I can't follow the rules but my papers read damn good nonetheless. Sometimes, I think, you have to start a sentence with "and." It adds emphasis. In the second paragraph from the top, I could have made that one sentence, but I would have lost the "pop!" effect I got from splitting the sentence. I could have used an "em-dash," but that's emphasis different that what I wanted. The previous sentence was a complete thought on its own; the next sentence was an addendum, an afterthought, that stands on its own.

Comments? Anyone else think these writing "rules" are bunk? Or do you think I have it all wrong and can't write? It could be true, you know, but I've managed to trick a lot of people into thinking I'm pretty good. Ha.

So ... I got this new-fangled fancy iPod thing for mother's day, and I've become completely obsessed with looking at (although not buying) accessories for it. I know at least a few of you have an iPod, so if you have any recommendations, feel free to leave them.

Things I know I will need:
- Case (I like the Griffin SiliSkins, to start - may eventually get a nice leather case, too, and I want a case with a clip attached)
- FM transmitter (my car has a CD player, not a tape deck, and no audio-in)
- Some kind of car dock/charger (this bad boy will definitely be the main radio source en route to Michigan this summer; Griffin has a cool one called TuneFlex)
- Headphone cord holder
- Maybe new headphones (I have little ears!)

And, now that I have plenty of time to listen to them, recommendations on podcasts are also appreciated. I really wanted an iPod so I could listen to all the npr stuff that I really like. Which reminds me .. All you media/communication people (DAN) should listen to WNYC's (Dan, that's your home npr station anyway!) "On the Media" show each week.

Other than that, I am taking my first ever summer class. It's three weeks long, five days a week, three hours a day. On jazz music. We're in week two right now; our first test was Monday (day six of class) and we have a paper due today. Then we have a test next Monday and next Friday (last day of class) and a paper due Friday, too. Then it's done. It's like a credit hour a week. It's making me feel very exhausted, though. Then on May 30, I start Chem 101, which should be easy. It's conceptual chemistry for a girl who took two chemistry courses in high school (not to mention all the other science classes), which is way easier for me than jazz, since I'm kinda tone-deaf and know nothing about music. But, I suppose I am learning something. I may not even be tone-deaf -- just ignorant. Who knew?

Alright, enough for now. Gotta wake up my stepdaughter and get her moving. I'll post pix of me w/ iPod on facebook soon.