The Agrinautica

Researching Under the Bed
   Still working on the Chechnya paper. After tooling around on the internet for quite some time with marginal success I decided to change my research tactic and researched under my bed instead.

   This tactic was more successful than you'd think, as I almost immediately came upon a manila folder (the colour manila: chief export of the Philippenes) an inch thick, full of research on Chechnya, including numerous newspaper clippings. Also under my bed I discovered two dust covoured books on internal politics in Russia around the fall of the Soviet Union, a subject equally important in this paper. In conclusion, rummaging under one's bed can be a very valuable research tool.


Putting People in Little Boxes
   And of course, heavy paper writing always has completely unrelated effects as well - in this case, I rearranged my instant messeger friends list. As it now stands:
Unkown category has 19 screen names (SNs) in it, of which three are often on during peak hours;
Presumed Dead is one of the newly created categories, containing accounts I don't think are being used anymore is now the biggest category, with 110 SNs, none of which are usually online;
New was the former biggest category, currently with 107 SNs, about a dozen of which are usually online. Newly added SNs sometimes stay in this category for months before I relocate them;
Presidium is another newly created category, with the 11 SNs of people of people who I am most likely to want to know if they're online. Below that is newly created category
Commissariat, similarly of people I talk to online on a regular basis and thus wanted to divide out from the masses I rarely talk to. At this moment eight of them are online (of 24);
Scene, the next category, is probably one I will delete soon and relocate the contents. Pretty self explanatory really - it was people who I often see at shows and parties. It has 27 SNs, around a dozen of which are usually online;
UC Davis has 68 SNs, about two dozen of which are usually online I think. I'm not sure because its usually below the bottem of my screen and I don't scroll down there terribly often, hence the relevance of moving people from there I might want to talk to to a new category;
Comrades is other general friends, it used to be very big but the removal of inactive SNs took a heavy toll on it. Currently stands at 55 SNs, of which a dozen and a half are online at the moment;
MUNdoes (think ennuendo with an M instead of Ns) is another old category, originally created for the numerous people I knew from Model UN in HS. 21 SNs, of which four are currently online. I might eliminate this category and relocate its contents;
Fake People is for people I've never met in real life. I'm proud to say this only contains six people. Meeting people on the internet is lame. This category has the highest probability of being online, with 2/3rds of them (4) online at the moment. Suprising? Not really;
Bandoes is Another fairly obsolete vestigial category from my high school days, with two inmates. I'd like to point out that one of those is Matt "Mullmatt" Mullen, (sp0tless);
Dead On Arrival Gulag is another new category. My first instict was to name it "I Probably Didn't Want To Talk To Them Anyway," but that was obviously too long. Needless to say, these are people whose SNs I decided to keep for reference purposes, but really I don't see myself wanting to talk to them any time in the forseeable future. It could be that they are just minor acquantances, or it could be that I have utter contempt for their pitiful existence and if I have any interest in continuing to recognize their existence it is out of morbid curiousity, as is the case with roxymartini.

The Evillest Final
   So because Professor Siverson is evil, our final consisted of two parts. Part I (50% of the grade): Make up a question. Part II (50%): Answer it.
   One turn their answer in typed up by the end of the final time (15:30 today)(In interest of being evil he refused to offer any recommendations whatsoever on length, thus causing several students' heads to explode from lack of guidance), or write it in class. The advantage to the latter option being that he'd read those first and presumably go much easier on them.
   I was going to go with the latter option because I figured if I attempted to type it up I'd be up all night and torture myself immensely. So this morning I wake up at 0800 to start planning my attack. I start brainstorming into a word document and next thing I know I had half the paper written... so I just typed it up and turned it in. The end.


Possessed
   And then a great evil unexpectedly appeared in Davis with a ravenous appetite for some possession (and some sushi). Yes, my troll-like brother Tobin and his lover roxymartini came to town and repossessed my dear carmobile. I fear to imagine what damage they'll do to it before I see it again (there's something new every time), last time they kidnapped my car it was only a matter of hours before they used it to annihilate a pedestrian antelope.
   They also summoned codetoad and codetoad's girlfriend Hannah to the central park, and fed Kristy sushi.


Ode to Spring Break II
   Tomorrow (Wednesday) I have my last final at 0800 in the morning. I return home via trainmobile leaving here Thursday at 0725 and arriving at Irvine station at 1813.
   Time for more reminiscing, last spring break:
      Got a ride down with Eric from The List (By calling upon the magickal powers of Arjun). Two hours after arriving in county I was at the local pool hall with Sally & co. Next day saw my friend Robin Kivlin's band Jack Bighead at the Spectrum, then returned to Diedrichs off La Paz (DLP) where I got coffee and a cheese danish for free. Next day: mild adventures at Diedrichs with Alyssa. Next day, Tuesday, had interesting adventures with Alyssa at Diedrichs that involved drama and police. Wednesday of that week I saw a movie with Anna LeLoup (saw Willard), ate at Taco Loco (mmmmm calamari burger), saw Solomite and other bands at Chain Reaction, returned to Diedrichs at 12:30 that night for more adventuring. ...and finally on Saturday I ate at Taco Loco again, visited Fish and Ashlee at the Hub with Tom Colby and had some last adventures with the Diedrichs crew.
   So yea.. thats last spring break. Looking back, it was actually pretty action packed. I hope this one is as good.


   Well I have my last final in six hours and fifteen minutes, so I'm going to end this ASAP.


Related
   My dearest Shalane has a livejournal now: impotent_dream
   Related links: bah, they're all in the text of this update already.
   A Year Ago Today: I had my first day home of break!

   Suddenly this weekend is just about over. Suddenly this QUARTER is almost over.
The latter hella caught me by suprise.

   I deleted kazaa and suddenly my computer is in a whole new world of betterness. Kazaa really is the root of all evil.

   A thorough discussion of "MUNcest" has developed here, in which I coined the words "cestuous," "uncestuous," "intradais / interdais," "daicest," and "chaircest."
   I also ended up defining "jock" in this conversation that for unkown reasons Diane has coded friends only. The definition as I put it: "jock, verb - to aspire to bond with. One jocks persons one has a crush on. Roughly synonymous with "like," (Ro jocks Russel vs Ro likes Russel), but unlike "like" it implies action. When one jocks someone they not only like them but aspire to do something about it (though it does not imply an actual plan, but the general asperation in an imperfect sense)."

   About two weeks ago in Physics 137 (Nuclear Weapons) we were given a test so hard that 71% of everyone that took it FAILED. The teacher, everyone's favorite Dane, Professor Jenson, categorically refused to curve the test, preserving the failures for all time. He maintained that the class as a whole had been criminally unprepared. To rectify this situation however, he did declare that there would be another midterm, of equal difficulty and scope on 11/13/02 (tomarrow), for which we had best be better prepared for. Consequently I have not had time to write lj entries and even now time is at an extreme premium.

Berkeley - The House of Moral Depravity
   Last Friday Kristy and I ended up going down to Berkeley to visit my brother nibot and our friend roxymartini at the "moral depravity" theme co-op.
   True to its name, we were traumatized by such things as a hot tub full of naked people, a couple attempting to commit sexual acts in the room Kristy and I were supposed to sleep in, and rumours and implications of the activities of my brother. We did however survive, and I'd like to express our gratitude for the hospitality of the friendly deviants that live there.
   The next day Kristy and I wandered around telegraph in the pouring rain (pouring rain = a good thing), ate $1 naan bread, became an official couple, and other such pleasant activities.


   Saturday our Model UN club at Davis had our "crash course in chairing" to train people to be chairs at the Contra Costa County HS MUN Conference we are chairing this weekend. I taught the workshop on "how to score" of course.

   Tobin came to Davis today and ran off with my car. Such a troll.

More Professor Quotes
   "I was comfortably emersed in my nuclear weapons before you did that!" -Professor Jenson, after someone took a photograph of him, causing him to lose his train of thought.
   "We have words for people that will not make any exceptions to rules at all... ...assholes" -Professor Becker, while explaining Formalism, Rule Skepticism, Open Texture of the Law, and other such philosophies on whether rules may have "exceptions not exhaustively specified in advance."