School Daze.

Hey, so, I'm still here. School's been somewhat tough, but not so bad that I can't take a few minutes to post something. You may not have noticed, but I've decided to have a 3-times-a-week schedule. It's something that may completely fall apart next week, but it's something that I'm trying to stick to for now.

School is going well for me (at least the first week). I have American Government first on the MWF circuit. My teacher is young (he looks about my age) and I think this is only his second semester teaching, based on a few things that he's said. He also likes to show off his vocabulary when defining words for the class, which I feel defeats the whole point of defining the word.

Next is Spanish. I'm doing great so far. This is the only class that I have that meets every weekday, so I'm exposed to it a lot more often. Of course I've had plenty of exposure to it growing up, so I've only learned a few new things compared to other students who this is completely new to.

Then I have English Grammar. Nothing too bad, yet but I've only had one assignment (and thanks to everyone who helped with that!) We'll see how things go as the semester continues. Did you know that for a long time, double negatives were totally acceptable? And English was spelled Englych? I didn't.

Finally, I have my only class on the TR circuit: Advanced Composition. All I know is that I have a lot of writing to do. A lot. It's going to be time consuming, but hopefully fun.

Anyway, hay catorce horas en escuela. I think.

Orange everywhere!

Now, you're probably a patriotic person. You love our nation and are happy to be a citizen. You may even decorate your house with the colors of the flag on Independence Day or where red, white, and blue on Labor Day or something. But would you do these things year round?

Stillwater is orange. Seriously, everything in town is supportive of the school. Which is fine, of course, it's just that the school color is so . . . ugly. I think that orange is a fine color when used properly. Orange explosions are not so good.

And everybody wears orange! Maybe I notice it only because it's a color that is usually used in moderation, but even Allison's work requires her to wear an orange OSU shirt on Fridays.

I think part of my problem is the mascot doesn't match the color. When OSU was founded on Christmas day in 1890, it was originally Oklahoma A&M and the mascot was the tiger (I learned that from the hold music whenever I call the office. Guess how often that happens). Orange tigers I can get behind. Orange cowboys; I can't get behind that.

I'm freakin' out!

School starts tomorrow. If we don't update here for while it isn't because we hate you all or anything, it's just that we'll probably be extremely busy. Hopefully things won't be too bad, but we may not post again until winter break. Learning!

Me "preparing" for school.

"Stonking"

In my last post, I mentioned that tuition is high and that I'm annoyed where the money goes. I wrote that "tuition is pretty stonking high already." One of my readers pointed out to me that "stonking" isn't a word. The exchange (which took place through email) went something like this:

(It may help if you imagine us with British accents, for some reason)

Reader: Good sir, I have the utmost respect for you and your skills as a writer, but I believe you may have accidentally included a typographical error in your last entry on your internet website. I am sure that this was not intended and I wanted to point it out in electronic mail as to not embarrass you publicly.

Me: Gentleman, I am convinced that you are filled with the wisdom of the ages, but alas, I have gone through with both a visual inspection and the use of a "spell checking" device and have found no errors present. I am sure that you meant nothing offensive by your message and I assure you that no offense was taken, though perhaps in the future you should be certain of others mistakes before pointing them out.

Reader: Most gracious sir, while I do respect your brilliance as a writer, you used the word "stonking" and that clearly cannot be right. Perhaps you should go and edit your post.

Me: Kind reader, if you are under the impression that I meant "stinking," I promise you that I chose the word "stonking" on purpose.

The above conversation may or may not be verbatim as to how it actually happened.

Anyway, I looked up "stonking" at dictionary.com. It means "excellent, very impressive" or "extremely, also called stonkingly." My reader may simply not have known that "stonking" was a word, just as "stonkingly" is. In my defense, "stonking" is recognized by Firefox's spell check, but "stonkingly" is not.

Also, my readership is limited to family, so you know the reader. I didn't mean any offense by this post, I just wanted to rewrite the conversation in hoity-toity Brit-speak. Oi!

Hidden Fees

I get to ride the bus for free in Stillwater! Well, that's not true. I do not have to pay any additional fees to ride the bus. I was going through the cost of tuition for attending school, and there are a lot of things that I'm paying for, whether I want to or not. Things like the Academic Excellence fee ($360.50), the Academic Facilities fee ($147.00), the Student Union Renovation fee ($60.90), the Student Activities and Student Activities-A fees ($35 and $42, respectively), and the parking and transit fee ($32.20).

I guess my problems with it is that tuition is pretty stonking high already and then they glob all of these extra things on top. The Student Union looks nice, but why do I have to pay for the renovation that (as far as I can tell) already happened? I do like that by showing my ID I get to ride the bus for no (additional) charge, but what if I didn't have to ride the bus? And why is called parking and transit fee, if we still have to buy a parking pass? And why are there two student activity fees? Why not just have one fee at the combined price? That one's just weird to me.

Maybe my problem isn't the extra fees, it's knowing what they go to. Tuition I don't have any argument with because that's for my education, but if I knew how much of my tuition went to stocking the faculty lounge with donuts, I'd probably be telling a different tale.

Iron Chef America

Allison and I have discovered that Iron Chef is a very entertaining show. Well, the first 5 minutes anyway. If you haven't watched Iron Chef America, watch it. The actual show is decently entertaining as the chefs work on their dishes, but the best part is the revealing of the "secret ingredient" (I'm convinced that they know what it's going to be before hand). The chairman is ridiculously cheesy as he screams the ingredient. "Halibut!", "Hamburger!", "Artichokes!" It's all so funny. After that, Allison and I may watch the rest of the episode, or may not. We've already seen the best part.

Couch on a budget.

This is me taking a nap. On our couch.

Y'see, we have no real couch. We have an area rug and with a couple of blankets. And, of course, pillows. When Allison sits on the rug and wants the pillows, she'll ask for the couch. If I join her after she's already there, I'll complain that she's hogging all the couch. It's funny, but it's still the floor.

But think of all the money we saved!

It's official!

Here, in blurry photographic evidence, is undeniable proof that Allison and I are, indeed, lawfully wedded. Isn't it sweet?

Further proof that we cut the wedding cake.

I made an animated gif, but for some reason it wouldn't work here.