Finals week(s) craziness: the insanity continues

To do:

- 10-15 page paper, due tomorrow (12/1)

- Exam for Behavioral Interventions (12/1)

- Exam for Design and Analysis (12/2)

- Exam for Tests & Measurements (12/3)

- Final Exam for Tests & Measurements (12/6)

- Final draft of research proposal paper (8-15 pages) (12/8)

- Peer reviews for final research proposals (12/10)

And that's just school stuff... add into all of that working every M-F morning from 5AM to 7:45AM.

Finals week(s) craziness - stress will mess with your emotions

Trying to relax after another large batch of papers, I watched a computer-generated owl get murdered and plummet to its demise, and I nearly teared up a bit. Stress will mess up your emotions.

Bye, bye, Hedwig!

Finals week(s) craziness - trying to sleep

I graded papers all night, so I was both furious and exhausted, but I had so many cups of coffee that while I was mentally and physically exhausted, my heart was beating too fast and frenetically to allow me to sleep so I watched some "Community" and "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" to calm down, and I thought the best thing to combine with caffeine was some coffee-flavored beer, and I opted for one of my favorites from one of my favorite breweries: Great Divide Imperial Stout (Great Divide actually has some oak-aged stouts and porters and they have some coffee infused and chocolate infused stouts, but this was the normal imperial stout, unfortunately).

Needless to say, I am both groggy and relaxed at 2:17PST AM. BUT --- the impetus for this post was to admit a COLOSSAL failure on my part. This is a failure that has affected my life for YEARS.

I was watching "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" episode 608 'The Gang Gets a New Member,' and while it featured one of my favorite SNL cast members from the current cast, Jason Sudeikis, it ALSO featured one of my favorite Star Trek veterans.

And herein lies my embarrassing failure: when I saw the actor playing Dee's old high school drama teacher Dr. Meyers, I immediately thought to myself "It's Odo! - It's Armin Shimerman!"

Odo, as of course you know, was the head of security on the Deep Space Nine space station in "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," and he was a testy but lovable member of the shapeshifting species "The Founders." I had this EXACT same thought when I saw Mr. Shimerman appear in several episodes of "Frasier" back in season season 8 as Frasier Crane's old psychology professor to whom Frasier turned for guidance while he was unemployed and searching for a purpose for his life.

But, dammit all, it hit me when I saw the credits for "It's Always Sunny": the actor who played Quark on "Deep Space Nine" and "The Next Generation" (and Letek and DaiMon in earlier episodes of "The Next Generation") was Armin Shimerman.

The name of the actor who played Odo, Dr. Meyers, and Professor Tewksberry is Rene Auberjonois.

Even though I knew the actor who played everyone's favorite Ferengi is Armin Shimerman, I had ALSO been incorrectly identifying everyone's favorite Founder as Armin Shimerman for nearly 10 years. This is quite embarrassing, and I couldn't sleep without confessing my errors and trying to find redemption by doing this publicly via The Boring Things.

*All spelling and formatting errors can be addressed to Great Divide Brewing Co., 2201 Arapahoe St. Denver, CO 80205*

Happy Thanksgiving

Give thanks. 'N stuff.

Finals week(s) craziness - weather

Washington has been hit with crazy weather. Snow, ice, and wind. My power is out and I'm freezing my ass off whilst still grading papers.

How to stay warm? DRINKING. Goodnight. Brrrrrr.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile

Finals week(s) craziness: non-functional spam

The only thing more annoying than spam is non-functional spam.

Like when you get the email from "site.admin@happyvrze.co.ch" that is just a plain text email that says something like

".the dryer, very. bxzqx"

If you're going to spam me at least have the decency to offer to cure my ED or the opportunity to buy "real Canada pharmacy meds".

Finals week(s) craziness - making money

Sometimes, when grading essays or when I scan the glazed looks in the eye of the unmotivated masses, I consider just how much money I could make writing essays and accepting bribes. Just a thought.

Finals week(s) craziness - bunny dong

I wouldn't approve this poster for a children's film, but I guess that's how low standards have become in today's society.

Finals week(s) craziness

This is the final week of my current college course for my masters degree. This upcoming week is also the final week of the trimester before the actual finals week of the trimester right after Thanksgiving. Then I'll only have 1.5 weeks to conduct lessons and instruction before Christmas break. The week before Christmas is also my next finals week for my November/December masters course.

There will be a lot of horrible thoughts and moments of anger and frustration and craziness and paranoia and self-loathing and even a little randiness all working their way through my system over the next 3-4 weeks.

George is ALSO finishing up work for his masters degree courses in the next few weeks.

The Boring Things will be hopping in the next few weeks - but in the worst/best ways.

Let the floodgates open.

Let me lead the charge with tonight's worst thought:

I am awful. This paper that I'm writing is utter crap - I am spewing the "edu-bile" I know my instructor wanted to see and doing so while incorporating a few random, relevant-sounding quotes from the textbooks. I don't believe what I'm writing, nor do I ever plan to actually incorporate these ideas into my classroom. I know I've done this for 4.5 years of college course work, but since I'm doing it now, after three years of teaching and studying teaching, I just feel like it is even more soul-crushing and for each and every paper I write, which I find boring and impractical, a little piece of me dies inside.

Eating Well on A Budget

Pork chop from Safeway's clearance meat: $1

Garlic bread: 50¢

Mashed potatoes: about 75¢ worth of ingredients

Total cost for delicious pork chop dinner: $2.25

Boom.

26 minutes 'til class

Not enough time to do any serious paper-writing. Not enough time to get a decent nap.

Just enough time to post this, and eat two cookies.

I tried to post this to David Bentler's Facebook wall, but Facebook said it was too long. I will not be denied.

OH MY GOSH I SO WANT TO COME TO SEATTLE AND WATCH SOCCER WITH YOU AND JOEL AND BJ ON SUNDAY NIGHT. CAN I DO THIS, PLEASE? WILL THIS HAPPEN? WILL IT BE POSSIBLE? DO YOU TYPE HARDER WHEN CAPS LOCK IS ON FOR EXTRA EMPHASIS, EVEN THOUGH THIS EXTRA EMPHASIS ONLY SHOWS UP IN MY EMOTIONAL STATE AS I TYPE AND HOW THIS MAKES ME FEEL BETTER? OH GOD WHAT HAVE I DONE? PLEASE HELP ME AND MY SHITTY CAR MAKE IT TO SEATTLE FOR SUNDAY'S SOCCER. BUT ONLY IF Joel Slagle IS THERE. I LOVE THAT MAN ALMOST AS MUCH AS YOU. MAYBE JUST AS MUCH. MAYBE JUST A LITTLE LESS. CAN YOU FIND ANY TYPOS IN THIS MESSAGE? NO? THAT'S BECAUSE I HAVE SPELL CHECK BUILT INTO MY BROWSER. TYPING IS REALLY HARD RIGHT NOW. I AM DOING THIS BECAUSE THERE ARE SEVERAL PEOPLE I WANT TO CALL/TEXT/MESSAGE RIGHT NOW BUT IF I DID I WOULD SAY THINGS THAT WOULD PERMANENTLY DAMAGE MY RELATIONSHIP WITH THEM AND WOULD REVEAL THE ELEMENTS OF LUCIFER THAT RESIDE IN THE DARK FOLDS OF MY SOUL. OH TO BE AN OPEN AND HONEST EXTROVERT. THE BOWELS OF PASSION RING OUT YET THEY RING HOLLOW AND DRY. THERE IS A CRACK IN MY LOVE BELL THAT WILL NEVER BE FIXED. IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA AND LOUIS C.K. ARE HILARIOUS. I HAVE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO MEET YOU AND SPEND OODLES AND OODLES OF TIME WITH YOU. I WANT OODLES OF YOUR TIME. DO YOU THINK ANYONE WILL EVER READ THIS? BILL MURRAY IS AN AMERICAN TREASURE. EVERY TIME I THINK I'M DONE I THINK OF SOMETHING NEW TO SAY. HOW WILL THIS SHOW UP ON YOUR iPHONE? OH MY GOSH WHAT ARE YOU DOING ON BLACK FRIDAY? I WAS THINKING ABOUT THIS AS SOON AS THE CALENDAR HIT NOVEMBER AND I COULDN'T THINK OF ANYONE I'D RATHER WAIT IN LINE WITH AT 3AM THAN YOU. ANY PLANS? I SPENT $200 ON MOVIE POSTERS AND $100 ON MOVIES THIS WEEK, SO I WON'T BE DOING ANY SHOPPING ON BLACK FRIDAY, BUT I LOVE THE EXPERIENCE.