1. Amazingly enough, even with all of the stressful things that occurred last semester, I made it out with the best grades I have ever received while in college. I received four As and two Bs.
2. I went on a trip with my boyfriend, David, to Las Vegas for some relaxation before classes started again. Someday, I’ll have to get around to posting photos.
3. Completely unrelated to the above, I received an offer for a paid internship in Las Vegas, Nevada. I probably shouldn’t disclose more than that here, but I will say that I’m really excited about it.
4. I completely forgot to post a “year in review” post for 2009. Someone remind me, will you?

I’m in another full load of classes this semester so I’ll be as busy as always. I’m way behind on a lot of things, including Q*bee trades, so my apologies to my bee friends… it’s been far too long.

This semester I’m in:
- ANTH 618: Religion in Culture – really, really interesting class. I have found, however, that the majority of students seem to be anthro majors and therefore a lot of the terminology and such flies way over my little CIS head. Not to mention that I’ve been trained the last two years to think of everything in sequence and logically – and things don’t always go that way in class (not that that’s a bad thing). Studying culture is entirely different than computing, that’s for sure.
- DEN 325: Personal & Professional Development – dumb requirement we have to take in order to graduate. Yes, some of what we discuss in this class is worthwhile – but I was told in class that I needed a $400 outfit with a designer purse to get job offers. I’m not kidding.
- PHYS 114: General Physics II – getting the class-with-a-science-prereq out of the way. It sucks, and quite frankly I probably won’t use anything from this class afterwards. I’m also not really digging the abstract-ness of the concepts (flux! Henrys! DANGEROUS ELECTRICAL CURRENTS!)
- CIS 501: Software Architecture – I’m really enjoying this class. We hadn’t really been taught previously how to lay out programs before coding and although it was awkward coding from diagrams the first time, I can definitely say that it’s a time saver and makes things so squeaky clean it makes my nerd knees week (say that ten times fast). We’ve been using StarUML to draw up the diagrams, which is a free solution for those interested.
- CIS 308: C/C++ Programming – I’m actually retaking this, as I had dropped it halfway through last semester. I should have this bitch knocked out though because I’m having an easier time this go around. I still hate C, however. If the devil went down to Georgia, C would be in the back seat with a baseball bat smacking little old Grannys’ mailboxes and kicking puppies. Srsly.
- STAT 325: Intro to Statistics – This has been pretty easy so far and I actually had my first exam tonight. I’m pretty certain I did really well but as always I’ll only know for sure once I see my grade online.

My course load has been pretty bad this semester, but not nearly as bad as fall 2008 (I shudder at the thought). That’s one of the reasons I haven’t been around here… the other reason is severe stress in other areas, namely some personal issues with family members that I won’t detail here. I don’t really foresee things changing until Christmas break, but at which time I’ll likely be working 40 hours a week again so who knows. I’m not making any promises.

The photo isn’t random here, these are just some books I’ve been poking around in lately. I haven’t got very far as of yet but I’ve come to the conclusion that you can’t claim to be knowledgeable about religion unless you start probing around in areas you previously had overlooked. I’m hoping to pick up some other religious materials soon… preferably over those I’m not too acquainted with, like Islam, Buddhism, etc. Any recommendations would be nice – although I would prefer ones that at least try to be academic – I’m not amused with Crocoduck reasoning.

Anyway, I’m still active around Twitter (@heatheronnen) and Facebook (I don’t add you unless I know you, but you can try if you really want to) if you’re interested. Hopefully it won’t be another 2.5 months before my next post…

Oh, and for some reason I’ve suddenly fell in love with Fleet Foxes.

It’s not a secret or even a real novel way of doing things. However, I didn’t find a whole lot of information via the Internet about it so I figured I might as well share what I’ve learned from it. It’s what I see being called the “wet paper towel” method. It’s not a science and I know it’s been around forever (I remember my mom doing it) but still when I was thinking about doing it there just wasn’t a lot of information out there.

I use an extremely lazy approach to germinate seeds this way. I fold a paper towel into quarters. Then I wet the paper towel (it needs to be quite damp but there must not be a lot of excess water because this will drown the seeds) and place the seeds between the two sides and fold the paper towel over them. Most people at this point seem to just leave the paper towel on a plate or something similar but I have been putting the paper towel inside of a plastic sandwich bag to create something like a greenhouse — at least I think that’s what it’s doing.

Now where to place the bag? On most seed packets (and on the internet if the seed packet does not provide information), you can find out what the optimum conditions under which the seeds will germinate. For seeds that need lots of sun, you can put the bag on a windowsill. All my seeds except for my tomatoes have germinated laying on the floor in a corner of my room with little sunlight. The average temperature was around 75-80 degrees Fahrenheit with little humidity.

I haven’t tried this with very many varieties of seeds but here are my findings:
Basil (Sweet) – less than 24 hours
Lettuce (Black-seeded simpson) – less than 24 hours
Lettuce (Beet Bull’s Blood) – 3 days
Lettuce (Red Salad Bowl) – 4 days
Cilantro – did not germinate – possibly too much water?
Parsley – 7 days – but had to soak overnight in a bowl of water before germination
Tomatoes (Red Robin) – 2 days

The only seed which I was completely unable to germinate was the cilantro. I still don’t know why they didn’t germinate because they were put under the same conditions as the parsley (which has similar growing conditions) but it may have been due to too much water or perhaps the seeds were just bad. All in all, I think the experiment was successful because in all cases the seeds germinated far before the packages reported I would see seedlings if they were planted directly in the dirt.

What to do with the seedlings once they have emerged? Oddly enough, I found that it is best to leave them in the paper towel for several days until their leaves (cotyledons) have emerged, are a healthy green color, and the root is about a half-inch to a full-inch long. I tried planting the seeds in the soil directly after they germinated and after waiting for the above conditions and almost every single time the seeds grew faster and stronger when I waited. I keep the paper towel consistently damp from the time I first put the seeds in the paper towel to when I move them to soil. I transplant the seeds from the paper towel to Jiffy grow pots with Miracle Grow organic choice potting mix. So far all of the plants I have started this way look great and are growing quickly. The only plants I have that have caught the blight have been ones bought at Walmart and Home Depot!

Anyway, that’s my experience so far with patio/container gardening. I’m no expert so take what I’ve said so far with a grain of salt. I just wanted to share what I’ve found in hopes that it will help someone else who wants to venture into a little gardening.

I feel like I’m rambling, however, so I guess the point of this entry is that if you’re interested in helping to fight diseases and wouldn’t mind a program running nearly unnoticeably in the background then this is pretty neat. Also for the biology/genetics nerds who like to view the folding action real-time

I’ve begun looking through my stuff for things I might be able to eBay off to put towards paying some of the loans off. We’ll see how that goes — eBay is scary, and I hate the fact they charge you to list items* and then again when you sell them. Amazon might be the way to go, I don’t know.

[Edit] * Apparently eBay lets you have 3 free listings a month. I’m trying it with one item to see how it pans out.

How did you cope with your college debt?

Some would say that I should just be happy that I’m getting comments but to be honest I just don’t care any more about that stuff. I’m a sophomore in college with a week until my final exams

I’m thinking I might decide to start deleting those types of comments — despite being legitimate discussion I feel like it makes the comments look spammish, which is bad. So please use your real names, spammish people.

1. No matter what they tell you, your room will not be that big. Especially when you consider that you are sharing the room with another person, and more than likely you will both bring lots of crap, and all of these things will result in a very limited amount of space.
2. You will have to deal with another person who will, unless you’re very lucky, have a schedule unlike your’s and you will have to deal with them waking up much earlier than you, trashing the room, coming back to the room drunk (and I’ve heard stories of drunken roommates barfing all over the room). In my case specifically one of my former roommates was a theatre major who, forgive me, was obviously in a much easier curriculum than me, who is in the college of engineering.
3. Your roommate will probably not have the same standards of cleanliness as you. My theatre roommate that I mentioned previously was especially nasty – and I have photos to prove it. She would leave pizza containers and food on her desk for literally months, and only cleaned up when she had to before breaks when the RAs would check the rooms.
4. Your roommate will probably not have the same standards of decency as you. For instance, my theatre roommate liked to sit around the room with only a shirt on. She also liked to talk loudly on the phone about her sex life, and proclaim that all women felt like she did. Hmm.
5. Your roommate will probably not like the same music as you. Since my theatre roommate is making such a good example, I will use her again. She absolutely loved musicals. I think musicals are the spawn of satan. I would be listening to my music, she would come into the room and start blaring her shit at top volume with apparent disregard for whatever I was doing.
6. Most dorms are completely overpriced, no matter what they tell you at orientation, tours, whatever. I found out that my dorm equates to about $800 a month (but this includes food and all utilities except for TV). However, I can get an apartment for $200 a month that includes all utilities except for electricity. Unless I’m eating $600 worth of food or using $600 electricity, I fail to see how that’s a bargain.
7. Dorms force you out on breaks. Nevermind that you’ve already paid the monthly ‘rate’ in the form of a massive prepayment at the beginning of the semester. This makes it hard to get a job if they know you won’t be there for a month over Christmas break, and Thanksgiving break, etc.
8. The cafeteria is hardly ever what it’s cracked up to be. Our cafeteria in particular has okay food, but you have to wait in horrendous lines and deal with crappy hours. You end up scheduling your whole day around what time you can manage to go and eat there, and get the food you had already paid for. I should also mention that the food is grossly overpriced: a meal at our cafeteria equates to $8. For a ham sandwich, milk, Koolaid, and chips. What a bargain.
9. Freshman congregate in dorms. I don’t like to stereotype by age, but there are a larger number of freshman in the dorms who have their parents pay for everything and this generally equates to them being spoiled brats who care nothing about others around them. No, RAs will probably not come to your rescue when they decide to rampage up and down the halls at 4 a.m. screaming, and when you ask them to be quiet because you have a 7:30 a.m. class or work, they won’t give a shit – or at least the spoiled brats in my hallway never did.
10. The dorms reek of the same sort of crap you’d have to deal with if you had stayed at home to go to college. I have to ask permission to use the kitchen, I have to sign in guests (it’s my room that I’ve already paid for, why do I have to ask permission if I can have someone in the room???), I receive a penalty if I lock myself out of my room too many times (nevermind the fact it costs them nothing to loan me the key so I can get my key out of the room, as long as the spare is returned there is no cost involved), the entire floor gets called into a meeting if a few people decide to do something stupid like smoke weed in the trash room, and if I come back to the dorms too late I have to “check in” with the front desk even if I was just gone for 10 minutes to get something from the quick shop. Oh, and we have to have all pets registered with the front desk, we have to have our computers registered before we can connect to the network, and you’re supposed to get permission from your roommate before you have any friends over to the room. If I wanted to deal with so much permission-asking and general crap I would have stayed at home.

Some people have tried to tell me that the dorms are a “learning experience” that is or will be very valuable later. Total bullshit. Having to put up with the crap listed here inhibits doing what you came to college to do – learn about your field. The stress I’ve had because of this stuff only makes it harder to focus on your classes and do what you need to do. The only thing the dorms have that is positive in my opinion is that they make it easier to meet new people. However, you can do that at the student union any day and not have to pay upwards of $3,000 to do so.

PS: On April Fool’s Day I always look forward to seeing Google’s joke/prank. This year’s was pretty awesome in my opinion:
http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/cadie/index.html
The previous link wasn’t quite as hilarious as the blogspot page they made for CADIE:
http://cadiesingularity.blogspot.com
Just picturing the Google techs working on that blog is priceless…

In terms of what tourist-y things we did, we went to Japantown, the beach, and to the Golden Gate Bridge. Japantown was really awesome, even after being there before. I’ve always had an interest in Japanese culture so it’s pretty neat to go someplace where the culture seems to be involved in everything. The street signs even had an English and a Japanese part. It’s too bad that my then-friend was too busy huffing and rolling his eyes while on his cell phone to enjoy it. Before we left, though, we went and tried sushi at what seemed to be an authentic Japanese restaurant. Although I don’t think I’ll try it again, at least I can say I’ve tried it now. Bravo to my sister April who ate several whole pieces of sushi, even if she did have to drink lots and lots of water to get them down.

The beach was really cool but the water was freezing. I haven’t seen the Pacific Ocean since I was around 6 years old. I wish the water was warmer so we could have collected sea shells and done the typical tourist stuff, but oh well. There’s no reason there can’t be a next time in a warmer climate.

The Golden Gate Bridge was okay. I knew it was pretty high up, but you don’t really realize how high up it is until you’re standing on it and look down. I know I was scared, lol. It wasn’t really all that great, especially since every time you see anything about San Francisco it is usually accompanied by a photo of the bridge. It was nice seeing it but I probably won’t venture out there again just because it was pretty far away from anything else and there were far too many annoying tourist-y types.

I forgot to mention that we also went to “the Castro”, which apparently is the “gay district” of San Francisco. My then-friend, who is gay, desperately wanted to go. So we went, and it really wasn’t very good as a place for straight people to go to because pretty much it was a street with lots of shops but geared towards gay people. There was a shop that sold tiny male underwear, gay porn, etc. I guess I can say I’ve been now, but I’ll be sure to recommend to people that it’s really not very exciting except as perhaps bragging material if you happen to be gay (“omg I’ve been to the Castro!”). It’s basically the same as the rest of the city, really, except for the rainbow flags hung everywhere they would fit and the gay porn.

I wonder if I’ll suddenly get a plethora of hits because my blog mentions gay porn. LOL

We left San Francisco on Friday. I would have thought that all the crap/drama would have been over with but of course my then-friend just had to throw something in there to be sure he was being as much of an asshole as possible. I was the first to board the plane, and I put my bag in the overhead container, sat down, turned around, and lo and behold… he had decided to drag my other sister to sit somewhere else. Not beside me. I was seething pissed – especially seeing as how I had done absolutely nothing to him (as a matter of fact, I had just decided to ignore him because I wasn’t sure what I would say if I let myself explode on him). After I said, “you’ve GOT to be kidding me, thanks a lot guys” in a slightly more than normal decibel I was told “but he wanted to take pictures” and I had sat in the window seat. Nobody had ever said anything to me about being desperate to sit in the window seat, and since I was the first one on I just sat down in the farthest seat. If someone had mentioned to me that they wanted the window seat I wouldn’t have minded, I’ve been on a plane often enough that it’s not a big deal. But, no, he just had to have some sort of a cover story in case I did get pissed as to why he was being so childish that he wouldn’t even sit by me on the plane.

It was at this point I realized how much some of my high school friends have really changed. I’ve stuck to my guns, so to speak, and refused to drink/smoke/be retarded and meanwhile people like my then-friend have descended into immaturity lined with generous amounts of alcohol. I don’t feel bad saying this here, because after the trip he – in a great show of drama – “defriended” me on Facebook, which I’m assuming I was supposed to be upset about. I’m assuming this was to prevent me from seeing his status updates complaining about what a bitch I supposedly was (the same bitch other people on the trip said that I wasn’t being). This blog is open to anyone, everyone, and I know that – and I don’t care. I also don’t ban people from viewing it, unless they’re spamming or hacking. So, in short, if he comes across this, let me say this, because you’re apparently “done with me” by no fault of my own: you are the biggest hypocrite and I still vividly remember you telling me you would never be one of those stupid college kids drinking every weekend. You were and are so incredibly selfish to try to shove me and my sister off at the hotel. You cemented your childishness in my memory forever when you decided to take everyone else out to breakfast without me without even asking me, and I have no idea what you told them as to why I “wouldn’t want to go”. When I told Candace about this, she was completely aghast – she also couldn’t believe this was the same person we knew in high school. So, in short, Jake, go to whatever Hell you Catholics believe in.

It’s really too bad that the trip had to be tainted with that asshole’s behavior because I think it would have been a lot of fun, otherwise. I did have a lot of fun anyway, but when he just pegged me out to be an asshole to in some attempt to cause drama to complain about in his Facebook updates it sort of clogs up the fun machine. I can safely say that I won’t ever go on another trip with him, or be hanging out with him again. At least, however, I can say that unlike him, my mommy didn’t pay for my trip – I did, with my money, that I earned – and when I got home, I knew how to do my own laundry.

We arrived on Monday and things have been pretty good. We’ve been to see Fisherman’s Wharf, rode the trolleys and shopped at various places around the city like Chinatown and Union Square. We got to eat at the Hard Rock Cafe which is something I always love to do when I get the chance. I was trying to gear up to write a lengthy post about what’s been going on since then but I find that I don’t really have a lot to say. I’m having a good time, besides a few complaints about certain behaviors and certain people’s attitude problems (among other things). Let’s just say that I’m happy that I’m able to act my age and less like an immature child who hasn’t been out in the world. I could go on about that but I think it’s pretty obvious. I hold down two jobs, am a full-time student, have a cool boyfriend and still manage to have a good time with my friends without resorting to being retarded so I feel pretty accomplished.

I’ve been told that I take myself too seriously, but hard times don’t call for fun and games. I don’t have time to go out and get wasted like a party boy because, ya know, I have to work to pay for next semester and rent for this summer. It pisses me off when people like to hold that against me, like I can’t possibly have fun without the aid of alcohol, or that I’m some kind of prude who never has a good time. Fuck that – if you even knew me, you’d know that was the biggest load of shit. As time goes on, I’m really seeing that people change a lot after high school and sometimes it’s not good changes.

Let’s not let this turn into a rant, shall we?

I’m really looking forward to Japantown tomorrow because the last time I went a lot of the shops were closed because we went at an odd time. There’s a bonsai tree store in the mall there that I’m hoping to go to. I may get a bonsai tree providing that they aren’t too expensive and I can see a way to get it on the plane without killing it. (Fucking TSA.) I need to go and find a friend of mine some anime stuff which will be easy at Japantown since they have all kinds of that stuff there. I’ve always been interested in the Japanese culture so this is pretty much as close as I can get without actually going to Japan. On a sidenote, I’ve been seriously contemplating studying abroad in Japan. I’m not sure it’ll work out, but it’s a pretty good deal because I pay tuition and room and board to K-State (where I currently go) while I’m in Japan. I’ll just have to come up with the extra money for the plane tickets and make sure I’ll have extra money on hand because I won’t be able to work while I’m there. I would like to, but apparently it’s really hard to work overseas because of the business with getting work visas and stuff like that. I’ll have to talk to my adviser again.

Phew. I’ll try to make this more travel-related next time, lol.