So here we are, coming into the home-stretch of the semester. It’s a very exciting time. Thankfully it is NOT shaping up to be like last month’s “Perfect Storm”. Same amount of work, but it’s spread out more or less evenly over the next week, which is manageable, and at the very least… fair.

However, it will stand in stark contrast to the past week, when I did virtually nothing.
Which was rockin’. I’ve gotten really good at enjoying my fleeting periods that lack work.

If I’m not stressing over something though, it seems like everyone else is.
Glad break’s coming coon.

A week from today, I’ll be on my way home to enjoy a 5-day weekend, complete with seeing friends and family, culminating in the Plaza-Lights-Lighting which somehow turned into kindof a big thing over the years. I’m really excited. I just read in the paper today that they’re going to have, for the first time in my recent memory, new lights! They’ll be under the bridges, and made from LED lamps, making them way more efficient, which is great for everyone.

After that though… it’s back to work. We have one week of class left, in which I have a gigantic project due, and after which is finals. Which I should maybe study for. But then… CHRISTMAS BREAK. I won’t have to think about a mathematical proof, a Gaussian wave packet distribution for a normalized wave function, the Eigenvalue equation for an oscillating system with n degrees of freedom, mein kopf schmertz von ein Deutsch Professor, oder whether or not a given set of variables has a strong association and is statistically siginificant.

I’m sick of that crap, no joke. I have occasional moments where I’m really interested in my classes, but they’re quickly crushed beyond recognition by the fact that I, for all my intuition and clever wit, have to work really hard to stay on top of stuff. I’ll do what I have to, but I get tired just like everyone else, and so I’m looking forward to a) No Class, and to a lesser extent b) Different Classes at semester, which I recently registered for:

• Phys 251: Modern Physics II
• Phys 382: Math Physics
• Math 365: Ordinary Differential Equations
• Chem 121: Chemical Principles II
• Germ 231: Intermediate German II

Some curious news about what’s happening to me long-term: I will, in a matter of days, be signing a lease for a house in which myself and four other persons will live! I’m going to be the first one to live there because I’m going to be taking courses and *fingers crossed* doing research here over the summer.

For my parents, I took a few pictures of the place:

• The upstairs on the “boys” side
• The upstairs bedroom on the “boys” side
• The upstairs closet, etc. on the same side
• The bathroom/laundry room combo, on the downstairs side
• There’s a short list of things that are better and a refrigerator
• This is the outside. And Rob.

I didn’t take pictures of the bedrooms, because they had occupants, and taking pictures of them seemed particularly creepy, especially on the girl’s side. So sorry about that.

I should clarify: When I say “side”, I’m referring to the fact that our house is an ex-duplex, in that they just knocked down the wall in the middle and leave the other front door locked all the time. There’s five of us, so the two girls will take one “side”, and us boys will take another.

So more info on that as it comes. It seems crazy worrying about this in what was October, but I’m glad it’s done.

Back in the present, this last week was witness to the exciting game “Zombies vs. Humans” on Truman’s campus. It’s a pretty cool concept. Everyone signs up and gets a bandanna on their arms because they’re Human. One person is selected as the initial zombie, and they infect other people by touching them. Then those people put their bandannas on their head recognizing their now status as Zombies.

Humans can fight back by stunning a Zombie for 15 minutes using either socks or Nerf guns. Yes. Nerf Guns. It goes without saying that I am now obsessed with this game: the prospect of getting to sneak around campus in an ultra-paranoid state packing Nerf heat in order to combat the undead is VERY enticing. I’ve already got my Nerf gun purchased and am working on some modifications to make sure that I can give the undead their due when I get to play next semester.

[By The Way: There is an insane amount of literature in the form of archived forum posts concerning the ways and means of modding nerf guns into some pretty powerful armaments. Not like getting them to shoot rocks or anything, but more like getting them to shoot custom-made foam darts 100+ feet in good weather conditions. I mean… damn.]

While I’m here, I want to throw up a couple of other pictures.
The other day Lizz had a hairdo that just screamed to me, “Hey! I look like Princess Leia.” And I felt like sharing that with you. (Isn’t she cute? In a really “gallaxy far, far away” kinda way?)

So. That was a little longer than I meant for it to be, but there you go.
I hope everyone else can hang in there long enough to make it until Thanksgiving.