A friend is a gift you give yourself

It's been a while since my last blog. Not surprising; school has officially started. I think I like my classes. More appropriately, my class. I only have one this semester. It's a gift to myself for making it through the last semester. And I'm still working full-time. I plan on eventually switching to part time, but at least for now I like my job too much to switch to a new department. So for now, just the one. I am going to school in the summer as well though. I can justify all this because I get tuition reimbursement from my job. My one class is Biological Chemistry. Oh the joy that is chemistry. I like chemistry, but I have yet to love it. It's an excellent subject, but it takes ample studying time, and more practice to master it than I can extend without frequent breaks. I think I have ADD. My doctor concurs. The quiet kind. And so I have a hard time focusing and sitting. Whereas with Biology I am in a joyful land where everything makes sense on it's own. Yes, there is still studying and memorizing, but no math. I actually love math quite a lot, just not in it's useful forms. When they are just equations on their own, puzzles to solve if you will, and no consequences attached, I can sit and enjoy math for hours. However, as soon as the numbers mean something other than numbers, say amounts of chemicals that when added to a formula have the power to make or break the experiment, I want to pull out my hair. Biology just makes so much more sense without the numbers, and I can usually memorize that sort of stuff no problem. I like theory. So handling all the numbers in this class I'm taking, within the walls of my magical land of biology, I'm thinking it has to get better, right? My professor seems nice enough. He does have a quiet tone and a monotonous voice, but I think if I stay awake long enough to take notes, and do the reading, I'll make it through and won't become disinterested. The building I have the class in is pretty new and nice, so that's good. It's by the school of medicine, in between that and the school of nursing. Environment is key when it comes to studying, as we have all learned by a certain crane/tractor crashing through a certain library window. I have a good feeling about it.

I feel I should not finish with this post before at least commenting on fun week. I'm personally glad it's over. I loved it and I don't regret a minute of it, but it was exhausting to plan and follow through with all of it, though much of it was spontaneous. But I have yet to clean my room all the way, and my car for that matter, so it's nice to finally have some quiet time where I don't have to do anything. I still hold to my resolution of this being a fun year, but thankfully I don't have to fit all of what I want to do into the period of a week this time. That said, I got an absolutely awesome map from the map store. It's huge, it was inexpensive, and I must say I think Utah Idaho Supply is one of the coolest stores I've ever seen. I also visited quite an array of pet stores with my cohorts, and I really want a sugar glider now. The pet store right next to my house has them. I also want a turtle, a bird, and these cute little crabs I saw. I have yet to fire my kiln sadly, but these things can't be rushed. I did get an awesome wooden chess board my almost-brother-in-law made and gave me, because I plan on throwing my own chess set out of clay for my 12 year old nephew. And now I have to throw another for Kyle, but I'm excited about the endeavor. I also made quite the coolest t-shirts ever, with the subject of this post on the front. That was my fortune from the first day of fun week, and like Brian's it doesn't quite make sense to me, though for different reasons. His I can't make sense of one way or another, and no one else I've talked to seems to be doing any better. Mine makes sense, but I don't know if I believe it. It'd be nice if you could just go around saying, "hey you, you're my new friend. I hereby give you to me as a gift," but it also seems kind of wrong somehow. So now not only do I have a huge t-shirt press, borrowed from my mother, on my kitchen table that weighs more than I do and thus is not something I really want to move at the moment, but I also have a 5 man tent set up in my living room that no one thought would fit or stay up, but with help from the huge rocks in my garden, 4 roommates, 2 friends, and a rope tied to the closet door knob, is still standing after 4 days. Of course, it takes up the entire span of the living room, length, width and height. I'll probably take it down today. I also got to volunteer at an elementary school resource program, which I loved and will probably do more frequently on my off weeks, because they were such adorable and/or amusing kids. And I donated plasma for the first time, which is almost identical a process to platelets, only with no appointment and with money tacked on to the deal. I have yet to drag anyone to Game Nights Games, but I found out the address, so that will be on the agenda in the coming weeks. Hopefully you all made it to this point in my post, because it was rather long, and had it been me, I would have drifted off halfway through this to go get a soda or something.