The most important news of the day today regarding me is the injury I incurred while diving to try to keep a ball from going out of bounds playing basketball today. I landed on my right buttocks really hard and now it hurts to put any pressure on it at all. Ok it's not that bad but still, you get the idea. I also must have tried to break my fall with my right hand, because there's a bruise developing on my palm. Basketball is tough I tell ya.
Other than that, I am still procrastinating on uploading pictures from one and two weeks ago. And I want to clean my car on the inside as well as fix my bike tomorrow. Oh yeah, I'm planning on seeing Episode 3 tomorrow afternoon too. Should be fun, as I hear it's pretty good as long as you block out the dialogue :P
Wow. Liverpool comes back from a 0-3 deficit at halftime to beat AC Milan for the European Cup title. Amazing game! And I only saw half of the goals. But it was truly incredible. There was one point with about 3 minutes left when AC Milan had two point blank shots on goal and the goalie for Liverpool stopped them both. I was rooting for Liverpool because they were the underdogs, but at halftime I thought it was over for sure. Truly incredible. Wow.
It's 110 degrees outside. Sorry, actually it's only 93 degrees outside. But's 10:40am, so it shouldn't be that hot. Supposedly it's going to get up to 104 today. Yesterday it was in the 110s. And, naturally, our swamp cooler is broken at home. Dammit.
After a barely productive day, I've decided to do something useful tonight. Consequently, you are now graced with the presence of All You Ever Wanted To Know About AE. Enjoy!
Cleaned my desk. Emptied my inbox. Went grocery shopping. Did laundry. Yawn.
So I learned just now that I have the dishonorable distinction of getting the lowest *expletive* grade in ISM. It was bad enough to get me a C in the class. This was after doing fine on the homeworks (~90%). Since the class grade was based half on the final and half on the homeworks, this meant that I bombed the final. I wouldn't have a problem with this, except for something that I'm not comfortable posting here. Ask me about it in person if you're interested. Argh!!
The only thing that's really keeping me from blowing my top is that in the grand scheme of things one C isn't too bad. If I didn't have two A's to act as a counterweight it would be horrible (you need a B average to graduate). Still though, getting a C in an important, fundamental astronomy class like ISM is embarrassing and upsetting. ARGH!!!!
Another two hours of poker and this time I won $1! That's three dollars I've won after four hours of "work". Definitely ready to join the tour.
I took my last final this semester yesterday. It wasn't fun and finishing it didn't even feel that great. But it's nice to not have to deal with classes for a few months.
My car is going in for scheduled maintenance on Monday. What else can I bore you with.... Might be going on a hike Sunday... AE's interview will be posted soon, hopefully tomorrow. Then I just have to do Stephen's and the project will be finished. Yeah!
Today I have a different story to tell about softball (bitchin'). Instead of the usual trouncing we receive, we lost by only three runs, 18-15. So we didn't lose by the mercy rule! Now you might think that isn't a whole lot to get excited about, but after you've endured three straight weeks of being blown out, you'll take anything you can get.
Last night I played in an online poker tournament with about 700 other people. This was a "freeroll" tournament, meaning there was guaranteed prize money despite the lack of an entry fee. Of course, beating 700 other people takes quite a bit of luck. Fortunately for me, I did get lucky and finished 3rd, meaning I scored a huge $2 prize. Now I can put that money to good use by paying the entry fee of a $1 tourney with $75 guaranteed prize money, and move my way up the ranks... Now, since winning that $2 prize took me all of two hours, I think I'm qualified as a successful poker pro, with a current salary of $1/hr. I think I'm ready to quit my day job. What do you think?
Major studying will ensue tomorrow, as well as a badly needed haircut and a visit to the public library that will hopefully result in the first Harry Potter book being in my temporary posession.
Tonight I finally started to feel like I'm on the road to recovery. I still have a final tomorrow and then one on Tuesday before I'm done with classes for this semester, but I can at least see the light at the end of the tunnel. I've finished studying for my cosmology final tomorrow, so I'm writing this while playing poker for play money online.
Moving backward in time on a related note, I played poker with my friends on Friday night in our usual no-limit hold'em tournament. My "raise early and often" strategy didn't pan out too well this time, as I finished in 6th (or so) place despite re-buying once. This was out of 9 people total. So I lost $10 there. But it was fun anyway.
That was essentially the only interesting thing I did all weekend. This was due in part to my final tomorrow, but it was mainly due to the fact that I was incredibly sick on Thursday. In essence, I spent the time between 3am to about 11am puking every 30-45 minutes.
Aside: Just finished in 2nd place in the tourney. Whee. Damn, I need a haircut really badly. I hate it when my hair gets in my eyes. Grrr.
Anyway, I was really sick Thursday morning. Besides the constant vomiting, I also had pretty bad diarrhea (I know, you really wanted that info made public) and I didn't get any sleep at all Thursday morning. So around noon I biked in to the Campus Health Services building. Yes, I decided to bike in ~90 degree heat in my super-sick state. Probably wasn't the best idea, but I felt it would actually be dangerous for me to drive and I wasn't sure where to park. So I biked there and was totally dehydrated when I arrived. After waiting in several lines (like you always do at a hospital) they determined I was suffering from dehydration and either food poisoning or some kind of flu virus. Fortunately, the treatment for either was the same: lots of IV fluid for the dehydration and some drugs for nausea/diarrhea. They also gave me some antibiotics in case it was a bacterial infection (e.g. food poisoning). I spent a few hours lying on the hospital bed getting pumped with IV fluid zoning in and out. But really, the time in the hospital was pleasant compared to earlier that day. I can't even remember how bad it felt. I don't think it's possible; when the pain gets so bad you just can't remember it. Until it happens again, that is.
Thursday morning was definitely the worst. Thursday afternoon was the beginning of the recovery. Then I slept Thursday evening and night as well as Friday morning. But I still didn't have much energy, so I spent most of Friday playing Civ3. Saturday was similarly productive. Oh well, all I wanted to do was recover, and I think I've pretty much done that at this point.
One other interesting thing about being sick: I went on an "all-liquid" diet for about 24 hours following my release from the hospital. This meant that all I "ate" was gatorade and chicken broth. Fortunately, I had little appetite for anything else, so it worked out fine. In the past couple of days, I've upgraded to the "bland diet", which includes things like very ripe banans, rice, and macaroni and cheese. And just tonight I had a slice of pizza and a beef pot pie, so I think my eating habits are officially back to normal.
And I finished in third place in a second online poker tourney just now. I played horribly most of the way too. Oh well, better to be lucky than good I guess.
I finished my term paper for GR about two hours ago. That means that I'm done with everything except two finals. The first one is next Monday and the second is on the following Thursday. That means I finally have some time off, for the first time in quite awhile.
Not much else exciting to say, sadly.
From my softball team's 0-5 record, that's where. We got crushed yet again tonight, losing by the mercy rule after 3.5 innings. The lowlight of tonight's game for me was I went 0-2 at the plate and didn't even get a chance to make a play in the field. Our team played fine you know. We didn't make that many errors out there. We're just over-matched week after week. Hopefully, we'll get bumped down to a weaker league where we belong.
I got back from visiting Tiffany in the bay area today. I spent most of this evening working on homework due tomorrow morning. I was also mentally preparing myself for an all-nighter, since I had a term paper due tomorrow that I still had a lot of work to do on. However, about two hours ago the professor for the class sent me an email saying I could turn it in by Thursday morning and it'd be ok. So no all-nighter! Whew! Tomorrow is going to be split between classes, GR homework (not the term paper), and softball. Then I can spend all of Wednesday finishing the paper. Exciting eh?!
Let's say, in a hypothetical situation, you live across the street from a black church where they belt out the gospel music every Sunday. Being a person who enjoys gospel music, you would like to drop in and listen every week. However, you are a die-hard athiest. Is it sacrilegious to attend church every Sunday to listen to gospel music when you don't believe in the core belief driving it?