October 2004 Archives

I just dropped Kory off at work and I had hiccups the whole way there, the whole way back, and I still have them right now. The hiccups I get are not just tiny little hiccups, they're huge violent hiccups that shake my whole body and make me swerve while I'm driving. It's terrible. And when I get hiccups, I don't just get them once. I have to get them at least FIVE times a day. It's just not possible to have them once or twice. Seriously, I couldn't even tell you how many times I've had hiccups today. It's ridiculous.

Also on my way home I noticed all the garbage around my apartment complex, which is totally ridiculous. You see, there are only two sets of dumpsters for the whole complex, and it's a big complex. So you have to either walk your garbage down or drive it down to the dumpster. People here seem to have this problem where there is no way that they would ever stick a bag of garbage in their car for five seconds to drive it to the dumpster. "Eww, gross!" And forget about walking it down, that's even worse! So instead, they take their bag of garbage and put it either on the hood or trunk of their car, and drive it down like that (looking dumb while doing so.) A lot of times the bag of garbage will fall off their car while they're driving it down (imagine that, if you leave something on top of your car, it might fall off) and they don't bother to stop and pick it up! So often there are bags of garbage lying right in the middle of the road. Of course people are terrible drivers and they run over the bags, the garbage gets all over the road and eventally litters the surrounding woods and along the side of the highway. So gross! Just put your garbage in your trunk for five seconds! What do these people possibly have in their garbage that is so smelly and gross? These people also put the garbage on their cars hours before they even take it out. So you stroll into the parking lot and see cars with bags of garbage all over them.

One day I saw one of the maintenance guys sweeping up a bunch of garbage from one of these run over bags, and I felt so terrible. These ridiculous people couldn't just put their garbage in their trunk and drive it down, and then they couldn't even stop and pick the bag back up when it fell off their car, so this old man had to pick up after them before it blew out all over the highway. It was really sad.

I was walking up the sidewalk to my apartment the other day just as my neighbor was coming out of her apartment. Along with my neighbor came her dog who immediately ran to me, as far as her leash would allow, and started barking her head off. This has happened before, and generally my neighbor keeps walking and pulls the demon dog away. But on that day for some reason, she didn't pull the dog away. She just kind of stood there and yelled at her. So I just stood there not knowing what to do, and eventually I just started walking up to my door. As soon as I walked into the range of the demon dog, she jumped up and bit my leg! FINALLY my neighbor pulled her away and DIDN'T SAY A SINGLE THING TO ME! Hello, your dog just bit me! She just walked away pulling the demon dog along and I just walked into my apartment. She didn't draw blood or anything but there's a pretty decent sized scrape and bruise. But it was such an awkward moment. It's one of those experiences that seem to happen in slow motion, even though it's only a matter of seconds. One minute I'm walking to my apartment, then I'm standing there while the demon dog barks at me, then the dog bites me, and my neighbor walks away. So weird. I remember when I first moved in, Kory and I were talking to my neighbors in the back while demon dog was out, and they were like, "Ohhh, she would never bite!" And she came over, sniffed us, and even let us pet her. Now I can never go outside while they're home again because the whole situation is just too weird.

I am finally trying to switch over to Movable Type, so there are some things that are not up and working, and probably a lot of things that are up and not working!

There was a plan behind this photobooth picture. In the first picture, we were going to pretend that something smelled really bad. In the second picture, Kory was supposed to smell my armpit. In the third, I was supposed to smell Kory's armpit. And in the last one, we were supposed to cover up our noses because of the smell.

So Kory puts the last dollar into the photobooth, and we both immediately start pretending that something smells...and we keep pretending...and keep pretending...and it seriously must have taken 30 seconds for the first flash to go off. So this is what went wrong. I just sat there with my nose all scrunched up with a gross look on my face, but apparently this was impossible for Kory because he just kept sniffing over and over and over and I just couldn't take it anymore. It was just too hilarious and I couldn't stand it so I started cracking up. Kory meanwhile is STILL sniffing and trying to pull me back up into the frame.

Now what's going on in the second picture? Kory is supposed to be smelling my armpit, but he looks headless! I just look dumb in the third picture and Kory looks like he could care less that my nose is in his armpit. Kory did not follow the plan in the fourth picture and decided he was going to plug his nose (which is a better idea anyway) while I just sat there and looked like I was cold and terrified.

I also did some bug hunting today. Armed with my shovel and killing jar I went out into the woods and found...pretty much nothing but mosquitoes! I also had a helper today, a little boy named Tyler who was in the woods carrying around sticks in his wagon. "Ohhh, you're looking for bugs? I know where there are lots of bugs!" Then he preceded to show me slugs, pill bugs, and millipedes, and I therefore had to teach him the key characteristics of insects. "Six legs! See how this millipede has a lot of legs? We don't want him." Needless to say it didn't really matter because I'm convinced that the only things that live in the forest are worms, pill bugs, slugs, mosquitoes, and crane flies. I feel like giving up.

It seems like fall has come so all of a sudden. One day it was hot and sunny, and the next it was cold and dreary. Normally I wouldn't mind, I actually like fall a lot better than summer, BUT I really need to finish collecting all my insects. This picture was taken probably three weeks ago at Carol's, where I've collected a few times before. Even back then a lot of the plants were dead, and that means there were not many bugs. I ended up bringing home only a couple wasps and one butterfly. Now the weather is ten times worse, and I'm really scared that my collection is going to stink. It's rained almost every day this past week, and I don't think the coming weeks are going to get any better! My professor keeps telling us everyday that we should have our collection done by now and that we need to start identifying them. Ugh. So if anyone has any silverfish, cockroaches, or earwigs, stick them in ethanol and send them my way! It seems like those should be really easy insects to find, but I haven't come across a single one!

I have a research project proposal due for Cell Bio next Thursday, and I really don't know what to do. No one in the class does. It's very hard to understand my TA and she really doesn't explain things well, especially this project proposal. All we were told is that we have to come up with this project and it has to involve one of the techniques we've used in lab. If I am going to do electrophoresis where do I get the DNA from? If I'm going to do fluorescence where do I get cells from? She told us to go and look at research papers, but I know there's no way we can do anything that complicated in this lab. It's kind of frustrating because I want to do something more involved than just putting some DNA samples into a well and watching them migrate. It just seems pointless to do a research project if it's not going to challenge us.

I remember being in foundation classes and thinking, "When am I going to learn how these things actually work instead of just learning watered-down simplified versions of everything? Oh, I bet I'll learn them when I get in upper level courses." Well I'm in those upper level courses now and I am still thinking the same exact thing.

Things I don't like:

1. I had two tests and three quizzes this past week.


2. Kory got hit by a cop while riding his bike and now has a $105 ticket and a broken bike.


3. It's getting cold out and I have about a million bugs that I still need for my collection!
4. My bedroom is always freezing, even though the heat is turned up to 70!


5. On the way to work this afternoon, I saw an SUV with a Bush sticker, a Support Our Troops yellow ribbon sticker, and the license plate GUNMAKR.

Things I do like:

1. I cleaned out my car yesterday for the first time in forever, and I kind of look forward to getting into it now! (Don't worry, it will be dirty by tomorrow.)


2. Thanks to my dad, I now have an extension cord that allows me to clean my car!


3. I learned how to do fluorescence microscopy in Cell Bio lab.
4. My "advisor" waived the prereq I needed for Vertebrate Embryology, so now I'm signed up for it!


5. I e-mailed Michelle the other day and found out that she is now an adult with an adult job! A cardiac technician and a vascular technologist! Yay, Michelle!


6. Norm invited me for a Gmail account, and it is the best thing ever! Now everyone can e-mail me at aschnebe@gmail.com.

I would like to introduce the Cat Dancer, the best cat toy ever made. I have never seen something keep a cat occupied for so long. Fauxpaw loves this thing. All it is is some pieces of rolled up cardboard strung onto a wire. She goes crazy over it! That catnip mouse I bought her the other day? Psshhh. That cute purple eggplant stuffed with organic catnip that she drooled all over her first week here? Psshhh. Watch out eggplant, the Cat Dancer is in the house.

I'm sad to say that I don't have any good photos of her dancing with the cat dancer. I can't seem to get any good pictures of her actually. Everything is either too light, too dark, too blurry.

I now have my schedule for Spring 2005, and it isn't looking good. I have what could possibly the most boring classes ever: Spanish, organic chemistry 2, physiology, and probability / statistics. I think I've mentioned this before, but it's REALLY annoying that LCCC didn't require a foreign language to get an associate's degree. I really dislike the fact that I have to take two years of a language. I wish I could have done this coming right out of high school, seeing as how I took three years of Spanish, and by this point I don't remember anything.

My plans are somewhat screwed up now for finishing in three more semesters. I will try to explain why. I need to take a class called Vertebrate Embryology and Developmental Anatomy. The prereq's for this class are Cell Biology, which I am taking now, and either Zoological Foundations of Medicine or Vertebrate Anatomy. Ok. Zoological Foundations of Medicine is a NON-MAJORS course. Why should I take this class when it doesn't contribute to my degree? For my major, I have the choice of taking one of three classes: Vertebrate Anatomy, Entomology, or Ornithology. So I took Entomology thinking, "I will never have to take Vertebrate Anatomy." But obviously now I do have to take it because it is a prereq for Vertebrate blah blah blah ... so pretty much my advisor didn't warn me of this when he found out I was taking Entomology and now I have an extra class to take. I won't even get started on how my advisor is really just a temporary advisor because my real advisor whom I have never met is always out doing research.

Also, remember how I was behind a semester in my chem labs? Well, guess what? Organic chemistry lab 1 is only offered in the fall, 2 is offered in the spring. And guess what I was planning on taking this spring? That's right, I was going to take Organic chemistry 1 lab, and now I can't. You've got it, I am now going to be A YEAR BEHIND in chemistry labs. SO ANNOYING. I really dislike the way the chemistry courses are set up.

I've been really annoyed with school lately. I guess I just don't really know what I want to do with my life, so I'm constantly thinking about whether or not I've made the right choice. I'm already thousands of dollars in debt and it seems way too late to change my major now. And I don't even know if I want to change my major. I'm almost 23, it's so frustrating not knowing what I want to do.

A couple weeks ago I bought a plant. A nice, pretty plant with lots of purple flowers. I came downstairs the morning after I bought this plant to find a bunch of petals/dirt/plant debris and who knows what else on the counter surrounding the plant. I had no idea where it was coming from. Was Fauxpaw jumping up on the counter and eating it? Not that I had seen. I continued to find this mess every morning.

A week ago I had walked into the dark kitchen, flipped on the light, and to my surprise I saw a caterpillar on my pretty purple plant. Upon further inspection I saw not just one caterpillar, but five. Five hungry caterpillars chewing on my pretty purple plant and dropping their debris and frass (insect poop, I learned this in entomology the other day) all over the place! Caterpillar frass all over my counter, gross!

Now I know that for the past month I have been killing lots of bugs for my collection, but sometimes I just feel bad for certain bugs and I can't kill them. When Kory and I went out to Jennings Creek, I found a fuzzy caterpillar sitting on a rock in the middle of the creek, with some of his outer fuzziness all wet. He had probably fallen out of a tree, and I felt so bad for him. I put down my net and picked him up and put him up on the dry land. I felt the same away about these poor caterpillars, even though they were chomping their way through my plant. So I let them be.

Needless to say, the plant died a few days ago. This means that the caterpillars no longer had food to eat. I came downstairs in the morning once again to find one of the caterpillars on another plant close by, and who knew where the other ones were! Later that day I found one crawling up on the wall, one crawling on my couch (that Fauxpaw was stalking), one on the floor. First they were invading my plant, and now they were invading my apartment!

I know it's my fault, but I just couldn't get rid of them. I couldn't even put them outside because what if it was too cold for them? Who even knows if they're from around here. So right I have them all in an old tupperware bowl (that is missing a lid) with a lid (that is missing the bowl) and my goodness. I have never seen anything eat and poop more in my life. I think they poop even more than the baby starlings did. I give them three big pieces of lettuce everyday, and when I get home from work all the lettuce has been turned into frass.

What a mess.