Labmistress.com

This is Kitty and Simba’s routine at various intervals throughout the day. Bri made a comment yesterday that she thought Simba was getting skinnier because he has been “working out” with our little doglet. As you can see, Kitty has learned some more evasive moves to prevent her snout from being assaulted by the cat. Still nothing on the Nala front. She will have nothing to do with Kitty at all. I feel bad for her, because she is trapped upstairs most of the time because of her unwillingness to socialize with the dog. Well, just a little bad. She’s still a pill.

This week I have finals on two of my classes and then the last summer session starts. Almost halfway through. I went to that remedial computer class last night because he was performing the final lecture—a riveting introduction to HTML. I might have heard of it once or twice in the past. Anyway, after the lecture, one of my classmates asked if he was going to prepare for the final the same way he did the mid-term and his reply was, “Well, sort of. I’m going to change it because of HER.” Yep, that’s right, he was pointing at me. I looked at him wondering what he was talking about. A couple of weeks ago, he gave out a list of sample questions for the midterm. After he lectured that night, I bailed because I don’t need to be there to do the lab work. I guess after I left, he decided to go over the questions and gave the rest of the class the answers. I never had these and showed up the next class to take the test. I got a 96, because I missed a couple of questions that were worded funny and I thought he was trying to trick us. So, last night, his argument is that they really don’t need the answers because I was able to score very high on the midterm without this added information. Nice. Everybody was looking at me, and I pleaded with him not to punish them as I could have probably not attended a single class and walked out of here with a high “A” on the midterm and final. He held his ground. Afraid they were going to lynch me, I left immediately. I can’t wait until this class is over. The other one sucks too, just not as bad because I am actually learning something.

I have decided not to say anything further on the deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett. It’s not that I don’t have any opinions on the matter, just that I think everything has been said. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead. It’s so unnecessary and disrespectful to someone’s memory. Feel free to share your own thoughts on their passings, but I would like to remember the good stuff—watching Jill Munroe every week and wondering how she got her hair to do that, sitting alone on Halloween watching “Thriller” air for the first time, and seeing Jackson moonwalk for the first time to “Billie Jean.” We all have shortcomings in life and experience moments that would appear horrendous, if exposed to the public in the manner they were subjected to. They both gave the world many good moments, and I would just rather focus on those contributions.

Not exactly. I haven’t been gone THAT long.

My life right now is a blur. I finished the side job, but every day is just like the one before—wake up early, work all day, run home to grab dinner, and then off to school. We had Bri gone for a couple of weeks which helped out, but she has returned from the Bay Area, so now we add her cello madness and caring on top of everything, and I’m not so sure I will make it to the end of the summer.

It hasn’t all been work and I have gotten some moments to relax, or maybe it’s just that I procrastinated some homework to take a forced break. In the middle of all of this, Mark decides to get me started on “The Wire,” a police drama that ran for five seasons on HBO. It was the worst thing he could have done, but it was an attempt to soothe my despair over “Rome” only lasting two seasons. I have missed so much over the past few years because I didn’t watch television. “The Wire” was awesome, and I became completely addicted to it. Now that I’ve gotten through all the shows, again, I am bummed that it is all over. If you haven’t seen it, you should. It’s how television should be made.

I took a few days after finishing it, and told Mark that he was not allowed to get me hooked on anything that extended beyond one season, for the rest of the summer. These shortened intense sessions are killing me, and I way overextended myself by trying to take on twelve units in the summer. What was I thinking? Anyway, the new DVD set I have been started on is “Generation Kill.” I really wasn’t too interested, but having watched through the third show, it’s not too bad. It’s based on a real-life account of a Rolling Stone journalist that spent two months with the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion of the USMC when they invaded Iraq. I’m still early into it, but I think the best line has already been played in the series. While driving through an Iraqi town, the Marines are greeted by the villagers shouting, “We love America.” His reply to them? A cynical “vote Republican.” I was in stitches, and then Mark and I got off onto a tangent on whether this war was started because the U.S. wanted to have a political presence in the Middle East, and all that oil just made the effort “worthwhile.” Another blog entry to divulge our positions and who won the debate.

So what do you guys think I must see next?