6 Things

From Kristiane. Here are the rules: 1) Link back to the person who tagged you. 2) Post the rules on your blog. 3) Write six things about yourself. 4) Tag six people at the end of your post by posting links to their blog sites. 5) Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their site. 6) And let your tagger know when your entry is up.

1) I’m starting to get a gut. Granted, a “gut” for me isn’t much of a gut, but I could grab, pinch and pull off a good chunk of stuff…I couldn’t do this just a few months ago. I plan on starting a workout of some ab crunches. Considering it’s taken me almost a month to do this post after getting “tagged”…we’ll see when I get around to chiseling my abs.

2) I haven’t folded my laundry the past three times I’ve done it. Now, I used to fold my laundry while the clothes were still warm from the dryer every time.

But some time ago, I was pretty busy…but I had to do laundry. So I did it real quick and left the laundered clothes piled in the middle of my room, planning to fold them when I had time the next day. Well, I found that aside from certain “must-hang” clothes, the majority of my clothes didn’t really need folding. What’s the point of folding socks and underwear? Who cares if you have wrinkly boxers and undershirts? I sure don’t. So after hanging up what needed hanging, I picked out most of my clothes for the day off the ground for a week, until the pile got down to a smaller size.

And seeing as I rarely have people over (I rent a room out of someone’s house), I’m really the only person who sees my room. So the pile of clothes isn’t really a big issue. But I would still begrudgingly fold my laundry and wouldn’t go the “pile route” two times in a row…until the past couple months. I let it slide. Three times in a row. I don’t think it’s a habit yet.

3) Rock climbing is slowly taking over my life. I needed a Physical Education credit this past semester before transferring out. After strongly considering a Badminton class, I saw that my school offered Rock Climbing. With flashes of Cliffhanger, Vertical Limit and the opening scene to Mission Impossible 2 swimming around my head, I signed right up.

After the first day, EVERYTHING was aching from my shoulders to my toes. My handwriting was messed up for a couple days because my forearms were so sore. But after that, I slowly started getting stronger and less sore. I was able to climb routes that just a week or two earlier, I was pretty pathetically falling off of repeatedly.

I soon bought my own harness, chalk, caribiners, and climbing shoes — and I’m renewing my climbing gym membership this month. I have some hardcore callouses on my hands too 🙂

4) I want a motorcycle. I know, I know, they’re death traps and I could die any second when I’m on one. I still want a motorcycle. I’ve been wanting to get one for a while. And yes, it’s probably a phase that I’ll get over in a couple years, but hey, what’s the point of growing up if you don’t give into “phases” sometimes? Aren’t they what define our maturation?

Like many people, the bicycle was my preferred mode of transportation as a kid. It got me everywhere I needed to go in my busy childhood life. A motorcycle is nothing more than that bicycle, except it will take me everywhere I need to go in my busy adult life. It’s just another case of the refusal to grow up that fuels many of our decisions. (Oh man…I hope I don’t hit a mid-life crisis in the future.)

I really don’t understand why people think it’s perfectly cute and fine if I say I want to get a Vespa — which are smaller, less stable, and less visable — but get all worked up about how I’m committing suicide when I tell them I want a motorcycle.

5) My car is a piece of crap. It’s a 2000 Toyota Corolla, so it’s not that old I suppose. But boy, it hasn’t aged well at all. It’s used, and the previous owner certainly did not consider it a prized possession. The engine died on me on the freeway a few months back, so I had to spend a pretty penny basically putting a new engine in.

I have to check and top off the engine oil every week between oil changes just to keep things running smoothly. It makes all kinds of weird noises, does this vibrate/lurching thing at stop lights, and, on certain occasions, I think it farts through the air conditioning. Yes, it emits the silent-but-deadly types. I could be driving along on a hot summer day with the A/C cranking and suddenly, mild but unpleasant smells come wafting in along with the cool air. I’m pretty sure it’s not too harmful to my health. I use window A/C much more anyway.

But despite its quirks and embarrassing flatulence, it gets me from point A to point B. It also has a wicked turning radius that is awesome in parking lots and city streets.

6) I found out this weekend that I got a ‘D’ in one of my classes this past semester (Political Science 180). What the hell am I supposed to do with a D? This could actually jeopardize my plans to transfer out this fall. I quickly did the math and out of the 4 exams that make up our grade for the class, I did well enough on the first 3 to be sitting at a solid B/B+ going into the fourth and final exam. I needed to score a mere 65 to maintain my B.

But seeing as I got all A’s and one B in my other classes, I couldn’t care less if I dropped down to a C for this one. Okay, so what did I need to get a C? I needed to get a whoppin’ score of 25. A freakin’ 25 out of a possible 100. You’re telling me that a final exam that I hand-wrote 8 pages worth of answers for got me a score that was less than 25?!

I can only think of two things that happened:

• The prof. misplaced my exam on the wrong pile or something, figured I didn’t show up, and gave me a 0 for the final.

• The prof. just didn’t like me and graded my final extremely hard to make me fail his class. This one actually seems somewhat plausible because I probably missed about 1/3 of the classes and was late for a good chunk of the others. (It’s a morning class…and political science is kind of boring to me.) But c’mon, I studied the reading material and took notes every class I attended. That’s why I was sitting at a ‘B’ in the first place! Okay, so my final wasn’t up to the standards of the previous exams I took. But was it 60+ points worse? I highly doubt it.

These are the only two possible scenarios in my mind. I’m going to be, at the least, very annoyed no matter which one it is. If it’s the first one, it’s fine. He grades my exam then amends my grade for the class. No biggie. We all make mistakes. But if it’s the second one…I’m taking this all the way to the Dean if I have to. You can’t just change how you grade exams on the final exam of the semester!

Dammit, I really don’t need this right now. And the guy hasn’t returned my email and he didn’t give the class any other way to contact him. He’s a part-timer so he doesn’t even have an office! Oh man…if this guy went on vacation already…

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So I guess you can see which of the 6 things is occupying my mind the most right now.

As for the tagging? See the rules? That part is crossed off. I have a love/hate thing with this tag-post business in blogging. I like when I get tagged by someone (I feel like I have friends in the blogosphere), but I’m horrible at actually getting around to doing whatever I’m tagged to do.

Songs of the Day:

Jamie Cullum – “Twentysomething”
Jason Mraz – “Geek in the Pink”
Radiohead – “Climbing Up the Walls”
Oh No! Oh My! – “The Bike, Sir.”
Fountains of Wayne – “Survival Car”
Chuck Berry – “School Day”