11/1

Hardly any trick-or-treaters this year. I kept saying E's B and I should throw together costumes and go for the free candy. We're short, you know? We should capitalize on this usually detrimental detail at least once a year! But no. We watched CSI instead. You know you're getting old when you get more excited about Thanksgiving than you do about Halloween.

And you know you're getting old when you run into high school classmates and you mull over your ten-year reunion. Not that it's right around the corner or anything, but it's sort of in sight. Of course I'd go. Out of sheer morbid curiosity. Everyone's having babies! Will I even be married before the ten-year freak show??

Brother Mart reports: He and two of his friends ate ALL the macadamia nuts he packed as mini souvenirs for the host families (so what did he end up giving them, I wonder?), and came down with a stomach flu ("flew," he spells it) the next day. Not a good combo. Poor them. Also I ordered him to seek out Harry Potter and the Chinese Chamber of Commerce or whatever (apparently faux HP is big in the PRC) so we'll wait for word on that mission.

Work update: I'm not being deported. And I have a wonderful new schedule that will take some of the bad-sleep-schedule strain off. I hope this works.

I bought crazy blue pants tonight. They were $25. I just had to. I also bought a new puzzle, the kind with nine square pieces, and each piece has four sides, and it's a bitch to put together ... yah, I love those. I have two now. I had a music-themed one, and tonight I got a turtle one because it featured a red-eared slider just like Shumai. I got them both from Hallmark. That's where I ran into the classmates ... They've been together since our junior year in high school, and they're married now. Like me, they loved MHS, but like me, they're not really in touch with too many people. I guess that happens. But they're way more in tune with essential gossip than I am, such as who's on their second kid, who's on their first divorce.

Quiz tomorrow. Tomorrow is Saturday. Saturdays I go to school and then I come home and go to sleep. I wish I wouldn't sleep the whole afternoon away but even though I set my alarm, I can't seem to wake up before 4. And I get home from class around 1. Maybe the new schedule will help balance things.

11/2

I'm grumpy. It's rainy and I have to drive up to Alewa Hts. Nobody tips babysitters, not even when babysitters knock 20 percent off their hourly fee because you called them at a bad time and they quoted the first figure that came to their fuzzy mind. I did get a massive tip last weekend, I should mention. I was called to help out at a birthday party at the Children's Discovery Center (which by the way is a super neato place to take your kids) and actually earned $30 but walked away with $60. They were the easiest kids in the world, both parents were there, AND i got cake and ice cream. I mentally put this in the laptop fund, but then drove to Borders (since I was already at kakaako) and bought Shakira, "Laundry Service."

Maybe I can bring my crate of overdue library books to amuse the girls tonight. I brattily checked out every single Anastasia book @ Manoa Lib because I love Anastasia, maybe the girls will love her too. Most of the other books that I used for my presentation I already returned. I liked that project, but I'm glad it's over. Now I can go back to reading travel guides and doing crossword puzzles late at night.

The quiz was sort of a joke again. But I'm not complaining. Last week I took obsessive notes on everything in the chapter and used barely a drop of it to get 5/5 + 2 bonus points. This week I didn't even open the book and I got 6/6. But I don't think I'll not read for the next quiz, because I missed the bonus question today. So we had our four-hour class and then we all sat around talking about how the UHMCOE sucks (want to have a good laugh? Call the grad division secretary and ask her the name of any professor in the department. She won't be able to help you. She doesn't know their names or what they teach.) I still like many aspects of UH, including the fractured English department, because I never had a single professor/instructor who didn't know what they were talking about. You can dialog with any English faculty member for hours, days, semesters, and never finish discussing a thing. That came out funny, but that is a good thing. And I can use "dialog" as a verb if I want to.

So I don't want to get stuck in the anti-UH rut even though they've irritated me, disappointed me, infuritated me in more than a few ways since I entered as a freshman in 96. Because I think a post-secondary education is really what you make it, and attending a state institution such as ours forces you to be resourceful, forces you to to be creative, forces you to find ways around bureacracy and undisguised stupidity on all levels. As a lower-division undergrad I heard piles of horror stories about graduation being delayed because classes were unavailable, etc. The secret to avoiding that is to weasel your way into the honors program so you have a reserved seat in lectures and seminars that are limited to 20 people. You do not have to be smart to get in, just resourceful (though I guess it helps to be kind of smart if you want to stay in.) My friends were invited to be in the Selected Studies Program, but I had to CALL the SSP and pretty much ask for an invitation. The two pieces of advice I'd give incoming freshmen: 1) Take a summer course before your first fall semester. An easy one. That way you get an A, start off with a 4.0, and it's not hard, it's just one class. You also learn where all the buildings and soda machines are so you're prepared in the fall. 2) Weasel your way into SSP when you're still a high school senior. Call the Honors department and get in. You will never cry over closed sections. THe SSP and Honors faculty/staff are wonderful. They are extremely supportive. You can complete a grad-level thesis before you graduate. And you can graduate with pretty cords and extra words on your diploma. Yupp, that's my advice to incoming freshmen. Oh, there's one more: Major in FAMR. I wish I had.