Fangirlin' It

Ah!  I have now finished all my work except for preparing a short synopsis on my research to share with my class when we turn in the history paper next Thursday.  I still have to give my presentation on my English paper, but all the written work was turned in today.  The history paper, barring any cosmetic changes, I finished just now.  It's 19 pages, with a cover page and two pages of bibliography.  I really think it's the best paper I've ever written.  I'm considering asking my professor if he thinks I should submit it to an academic journal.  He was really impressed with my initial draft, and the final paper is over 12 pages longer than that, with much more detailed information and analysis. 

I'm really getting excited about graduation, y'all.  It's next Saturday, which is so much closer than it sounds!  Mom has gone all out for this; I think she may be more excited about it than I am.  It's been so long, and I'm really glad this is finally (almost!) over.  Then I have to finish up the application for the paralegal class, and (hopefully--crosses fingers and toes) I will be able to get a real job in an attorney's office in six months.  

Well, it's a little late for Halloween, but if you're looking for something horrifying, try the book I'm reading in my history class: Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin.  I've had to stop reading this before bed, guys.  Seriously, this is the most sickening thing I think I've ever been exposed to, and it's worse because it actually happened.  This actually makes the Western idea of what the Nazi concentration camps were like look like a picnic in spring, it's so horrifying.  This is the stuff that makes you go, "Oh, god, I never, ever wanted to know that," but someone's got to learn it.  I kind of just wish that someone wasn't me.

In other news, I finished my rough rough draft of the English paper (the one on the portrayal of the military in SG-1 and SGA) this morning.  We were supposed to 'workshop' each others' drafts; pass the draft to someone, they fill out a sheet about it, repeat.  Well, the people in my class are a bunch of slackers.  I mean, even more than I am.  In my group of four, I had six pages (missing some detail from a few sources and a conclusion for the eventual 8-10-page final paper), and one person I think had three pages.  The other two people had two pages.  One girl didn't even get to her actual thesis statement!  ::facepalm::  I finished up the rough draft to turn in this afternoon; it clocks in at just over 8 pages right now.

Now I have to really get going on the paper for said history class.  I really need to sit down and devote about a day to going through all my research material and making dedicated notes.  Then, I think we have a 10-page draft due soon-ish.  Yikes.  This paper is not horrifying, however; it's on British home front propaganda, official and unofficial and officially unofficial.  It's actually fairly interesting (to me) but I won't bore any of you with it.  

Well, apparently procrastination can pay off; that film paper and annotated bibliography I did literally at the last minute?  I got an A+ on both.  That, or this school really has no standards.  All the final grades aren't in yet, but in the two that are posted on the web, I got As.  This brings me up to just shy of a 3.0 overall GPA!  This is exciting, guys.  

On the down side, I'm sick again.  It's the sore throat with nasty white stuff all over, really gross, really painful.  I went to the doctor two days ago, and the rapid strep test was negative, but all the symptoms point to either strep or some other bacteria, so he prescribed antibiotics.  I opted to get it all over with and get the enormous penicillin shot instead of taking 10 days of oral antibiotics.  It leaves you kind of sore, and it goes in the hip.  Ouch.  But worth it; I think it's beginning to work.  I was supposed to drive down to visit my dad and stepmom in Alabama, but I'm not making a 7-hour drive by myself feeling like this.  It's a little disappointing, because this is the longest break from school I'll have until I graduate in December, and I haven't seen them since this past December.  Oh, well.  

There was a rare bird sighted nearby a few days ago, but I couldn't go see it at first because I had to study for finals, and by the time I could go, it was not there.  It was a purple gallinule, which kind of looks like a little kid got into the paints and coloured it in:

Ah, one final paper down, one to go.  Sort of.  It's not actually a paper, it's just the annotated bibliography as if we were going to write the paper.  It's due Monday, but I've already got my sources and started on it. 

I totally just wrote a seven-page paper this morning in an hour and a half, and it's pretty good.  That was due this morning, so I'm done with that.  Now I just have two final exams, which shouldn't be too hard, and I'm done for the semester.  Then I get a week off before I start summer session, but that's only one class the first session and one the second.  Then three classes in the fall and I'll be done.

Okay. Today, I really do have to be disciplined. I have to really try to get through all my sources for this Vietnam paper so I can start writing the damn thing. It's due on Wednesday, and in that time, I also have to do an 'extended assignment' for my math class (also due on Wednesday), study for all three of my finals, and still manage not to go insane. It's beautiful outside, it's Friday, I want to play, and I can't. I suspect I may end up writing my first-ever Doctor Who fic and doing my laundry in order to procrastinate before the day is over.

Godlet, are we roleplaying tonight and tomorrow, or tomorrow and Sunday?

So I'm making note cards for a fifteen-page research paper on the Vatican response to the Vietnam War, and I realised after about four or five cards that they have lj tags.  No, seriously.  They're marked by comma-separated terms, just like we mark our posts.  It made me giggle, more than was necessary, really.

I'm at home right now, because I was stupid enough to schedule a doctor's appointment at eight tomorrow morning, and it's closer to get to it from my house than school (plus my idiot parents have the car and won't give it back).  Thus necessitating me getting up at the ass-crack of dawn.  So even though we have a new wireless router, it's no match for college LAN, and my distribution upgrade is agonisingly slow.  I'm considering telling the poor thing to just give it up and wait 'til I get back to campus. 

I need to spend my next 'break' from researching making a few more Doctor Who icons; I don't feel like I have enough options.  For all my other fandoms, I have bookoos (yes, that's a word, shut up spell check) of different icons, but I've been somewhat slow on this one, hampered in part by blurry screencaps, burninated episodes (curse you, beeb!), and impending finals.  Hopefully I'll be able to make a few over the next couple of weeks, since I'm staying at school after finals until graduation.

The past couple of days, the weather here decided it was January again.  At the end of April.  What the fuck is wrong with you, Nature?!  I WENT OUT IN FLIP FLOPS, AND IT WAS FORTY DEGREES.  Not on!  The good news is, it's supposed to be about seventy-five tomorrow.  Gotta love the south.