The guy's cuban. Proudly. Occasionally the whisper static on the PA cranks out some oompa spanish vomit. The air may as well be in an urn. Only thing you can sometimes hear there: some dusty musician time forgot. I think everything forgot this place.

I guess Wisconsin and back-alley bullshit does that. Fine enough parlor trick by me.

- - -

So what had I done recently.

The last week was a subway train of details. I'd studied that stats exam hard, pounding it back and asking for more. It was the night before at a cold cafe--my usual, the ER--when I got a call. Not the usual 8 a day from Bad Ass, but one from Pious (aka Scott). He needed some help studying. Hadn't studied much at all. I made an appointment with him the following day for an hour and a half.

And then he had to go for my empathy bone. "Yeah I don't have the notes for about a week and a half of the course." Fuck. Desperation is a slut and I just gotta get drawn in by it. I told him I'd let him photocopy my notes. He had a photocopier. And a car. And the chapel house he lives in was warm. I couldn't argue with that. I'd been surprised icicles hadn't formed on my nuts in that apartment.

Sure enough, Pious had done no studying. He offered me chili and brownies. Food restricting svelt fucker I am now, I refused (but I had the chili later). So he photocopied my class notes, the one's I'd made on the articles, and then we got down to studying.

Well, I'd gotten down to studying already by re-reading the articles and going through my notes 3 times. So I guess it was tutoring for Pious. Now Pious isn't a stupid fucker. The man is smart as hell, he's just battling depression with a prozac baseball bat and trying to deal with shit. Not easy when you've got grad school. Have to have an iron stomach to get through.

And so we crept through every lecture as the hours burned like wax. We debated and talked about the intricacies of each equation. I'd detail my logic and reasoning for why something worked. We didn't just go over the notes. We analyzed them. And I think that was the only way Pious could cram all the info in his head. Hardwiring.

I was glad he didn't feel scared about the exam anymore. And I'd gone over my notes a 4th time with him and taught him the stuff. So that was good.

I ended up getting 6 and 30 in terms of sleep. Everything breezed by that day, and I felt little if any anxiety over the test. Even when she was passing it out, nothing. She said if people were ready to take the thing. I enthusiastically said, "hell yeah" in that "mmhmm" way. People were amused by this. But I was ready to take the thing.

Trouble was, I wrote so much for the first 3/4's of the exam that I left only 15 minutes for the biggest question of all. And I think I left out some crucial information. It won't tank my grade in the class, but I really didn't understand the wording of this one question and what she wanted.

So I felt bleh for the rest of the day. I ended up writing test questions for Jeff's class, emailed my advisor with an unnecessary update, and worked on some other things I can't remember.

- - -

Wednesday was cover my ass day. I got an email from Suzanne, the other prof I TA for. She was sick. Had lost her voice. So I had 6 hours to read through her lecture, figure out the logic, commit it to memory, add my own flourishes, and present it. 75 minutes. 100 students. The latter was nothing, but I didn't know if I could perform someone else's monologue that long.

But when today (thursday) rolled around, I pulled it off relatively well. I repeated myself a few times, and things weren't as smooth as I would've liked them to be, but I got people to laugh several times. Maybe even to think awhile about the material. Sure there were some problems like me not having quite the right version of the Sleep lecture, but in all I felt extremely comfortable while still being tense. Funny that I was talking about optimal arousal.

Suzanne thought I did good (as she was there and listening, but just had the lost voice deal). Another student concurred. I honestly couldn't tell if my flubs or nervous speaking habits showed much, but hey, I'll take it.

No stats class today either. Prof JH was out of town doing a nat'l acads talk about women in science. It's kindof curious how a world famous psych person teaches our stats. I think she gets a little impatient about my rampant perfectionism, but she's elegant and thoughtful about even fuss-budget students like me.

- - -

I meant to go out and see Hillary tonight--get food, watch a movie, usual--but the roads were absolute crap. It was snizzling snow out, it was around rush hour, and being were being fucking morons. Her husband testified to this. I was unfortunately trapped on U Ave, kinda semi-close to where I was supposed to pick up food for Hill and I (where I guess Sven must have ate already). I decided I'd eat there anyway.

Big mistake. I ended up getting there, finding no parking, and having to go back to my apartment. I blocked no less than 2 small intersections (no lights) and stuck in or out of a few big ones. It was bumper to bumper pandemonium. Small scale, but still rampant chaos.

When I got back I nuked a spinach and artichoke pizza, sat down, and just kinda wondered:

"What the fuck do I do now?"

I have no real work to do. I could do stats homework due on tuesday. But it'll take 1-2 hours to do. I'm saving it for when I'm bored. Seriously.

There's also making the exam for abnormal psych. Well I only have two lectures worth of material I haven't sifted through. Otherwise, I've already written 15 questions out of the 40 I need to submit to Jeff.

So I have a big ball of free time before my one take-home final for stats. I even have to wait on all of the lab analysis stuff. Chris, my advisor, wasn't even expecting me to move on the lab stuff during the end of the school year. Said today that I was putting the pressure on myself, and that he wasn't forcing anything. I acknowledged it and just conveyed that I was enthusiastic. And I am. I found an effect that gives this whole 6 months of data collection some meaning--I mean meaning for me. It validates why I did all this in the first place. I get the sense he wants me to cool down some, not be so impatient.

So I guess who am I to argue?

So I've been reading several online comics I follow, talking with Luna, Nicholas some...mostly just chilling.

Tomorrow I think Hill and I will try the food and a movie thing again. And on saturday Brian and I are gonna shoot some stick. Megan, the perky lesbian chick I mention on occasion, wants to do coffee because we haven't talked in a long time.

So in all, gotta say I'm happy.

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