Days when class doesn't begin until 10:30 are nice, although this time I got smart and headed up the hill and across the street to the red bus stop plenty early. I made it at 9:54 and the shuttle showed up a minute later. Nice! Ten minutes later I was at the fine arts building, where I waited it out until class began.
I do like my stats teacher, and the kid I sat next to, Jeff (we had behavioral analysis together and he's the roommate of one of the boys I worked with during the rat lab) told me that several of his friends had taken stats last year, with our current stats TA teaching. Apparently the experience was miserable, and she would do things like not show up to or cancel class on short notice and still require them to finish all their work, without always teaching them the concepts or answering their questions. Yikes. I think this is a good time to be taking psychological statistics.
Then we had a problem. I went out to wait for the shuttle. The time was 11:48 (I kept a record). At 11:51, I texted shuttle to see when it would arrive. The automatic system replied that the 1204 bus would be here in 5 minutes, the 1480 in 14. Okay. I could wait out in the cold for five minutes.
Only, at 11:55 I texted again. 1480 had switched to 9 minutes away, but 1204 was still at 5. Hmm. At 11:58 I texted again, just because I could, and nothing had changed. Then again at 12:03, 1480 was now 8 minutes away and 1204 had been taken off the route completely. Oh boy.
At 12:11, 1480 arrived. I rode it to the next stop and was planning to ride longer, but the driver jumped out to "check on something" and walked to the hood of the bus. Then he continued around to the side to look at the tires. Since I had no idea how long he would be, I simply jumped off there and walked across the quad and a ways over to the TSC. So I waited over twenty minutes just to ride one stop, which probably would have been a four minute walk (taking into account that the shuttle stop is on the opposite side of the fine arts building from the rest of campus).
On the way through the TSC, I paused to duck into the campus store and buy some scantrons, which I need for one or two of my classes. I was trying to gauge how many were in the plastic when I realized I didn't have my debit card with me, so I couldn't buy them. Tomorrow. I put them back and went outside just as the red bus was leaving the TSC stop. It might be worth riding in the mornings, but perhaps after class I'd better walk.
It was 12:30 when I made it back to Blue Square, although I did find out that apparently one of the South Campus buses (the red line) had hit a student's car. I think it was mostly a nick, but that was probably Bus 1204. Mom had told me she thought the red bus would be my best friend this semester. I disagree.
I entertained myself until it was time for abnormal psychology. Once again I gave myself plenty of time to get there, and had almost ten minutes to spare. I do think my teacher is interesting, and I might enjoy the class, but the threat of the "likely B" just hangs over my head like an anvil. He said that most test questions will come from what he says, then some from his PowerPoints and a few from the reading, and that "even things we talk about only for a second I think are fair game".
As we went through our lecture, he pointed out one of the questions that will be on the test ("What is the difference between a psychologist and a psychiatrist?" Answer: psychiatrists need to go to medical school). This was slightly worrying to me since this answer wasn't totally obvious on his slides. I think I'll be spending a lot of time combing through his PowerPoints for review, scrutinizing details.
I made it home fine, although shortly after I took off my coat and boots and set down my things, the fire alarm began to blare. It was quite loud. I don't think even I will have to worry about sleeping through that. Demetria and I suited up for the cold real quick and hurried down the stairs, which are fortunately right next to our apartment. As we descended, we found out from some of the others that it was a drill. Apparently the fire department by law has to have a drill within the first ten days of every semester. Demetria and I were both at class during the last one.
After we'd been out in the parking lot for a minute, we were summoned to the lobby so the fire marshal could talk to us. He told us what to do in case we were in the shower when we heard the alarm ("You cannot survive standing in a fire! The shower will not protect you!") and cautioned us not to cover our alarms or throw things at the ceiling sprinklers. Additionally, for future reference, if it's the first week of the semester and we hear the alarms and dismiss it as a drill, we'll be fined for not leaving our rooms. That makes sense. We were also informed that this was the only planned drill for the semester, so if the alarms do go off again then it's serious. With that, we were sent away. I am slightly concerned that no one ever checked up on people like Demetria and I who both missed this drill demonstration last year.
So after I took a shower (thankfully without any alarms going off), I got to work on my math. I have to say, I really like this Aplia program. I had to do an introductory assignment, which taught me how to use all the different features of the program. Here is what it told me to do with this graph:
All the directions were very clear throughout the program, even specifying colored objects in additional ways in case someone was colorblind. It will be interesting to see if that holds up, or if the "orange lines" on the bell curve will get a more sophisticated-sounding name.
Anyway, that was pretty time consuming and I made it through two assignments before calling it quits for the night. I have one left, due at 11:00 pm tomorrow (Our teacher doesn't want us to stay up until midnight working). I should have plenty of time to do it, since all my reading is finished, as well as the Pinterest board that my interior design teacher wanted us all to set up. I had to pin twenty pictures that I thought demonstrated the concept of the focal point.
That left me with time to kill as I waited for Mom to call me so we could chat about the money I received from the Regent's scholarship this semester, so... here's another ghost pirate and my first attempt at his grumpy friend, because they're still on my mind:
Youngblood is the only DP character I can do from memory so far,
so he gets drawn more than his fair share. His hat is awesome.
I named this guy Sitarist. "Sit" for short. It's a triple joke-
it's also short for "babysitter" and is an obscure FOP reference
to a Season 0 episode and Jorgen's pet dog, Eat, who eats. Sit sits.
Then of course, a sitar is a musical instrument that looks just
like his back. A sitarist is one who plays the sitar. I'm hilarious.
And for comparison, the skelebird.
So that was my school day. Also, one of my friends drew Gavin and Ethel for me. She's asleep now and so I can't ask her how she wants to be credited, but the sketches she shared with me all look amazing (Of course they do- I mean, it's her!). When she's finished coloring them in a few days then I'll have to ask if I can share them on my blog here, because they're very adorable. She loves to draw and she put a lot of work into them. It makes me happy.
I was actually there to watch her stream her first test sketches yesterday (It was handy to have a Chromebook I could set on the table while I ate dinner at the Marketplace!), and we talked back and forth a lot, and with another of our mutual friends who had joined the stream. That was pretty fun. Life has been a bit rough for both of them these past two or three months and one of the reasons I watched "Danny Phantom", aside from me liking Butch Hartman's work already, was because they're both big fans of the show and I thought this would give us something to talk about.
It definitely helped me to reconnect with them after winter break and cheer them up, and they're very excited to bring me into their little phandom (although they're both Danielle fans and shook their heads in amusement when I proclaimed Youngblood my favorite, so it's my job now to convince them of his worth. I can't resist maimed shapeshifter brats who were adopted by dragons and always want to improve their grammar). I hope they're both doing swell, my friends; I think I rekindled some of their old excitement. I'm glad they have me to talk to. We like each other and make a good team.
Anyhow, one of my gal pals drew Gavin and Ethel, and that was fun. When school doesn't absorb so much of my time, I'll be excited to sit down and work with their story some more. I did some plotting over Christmas break, although there's still a lot to do. I keep changing details. Never satisfied. I've never had such problems world-building before in my entire life. But seeing people draw my characters helps me remember how much I love them and how much I want to bring them to fruition.
Their story is without a doubt one of the more difficult pieces I've written (I say as I glance at my total story word count for the past three years which is well over one million), and I'm utterly determined not to let it get the best of me!
