Weather fluctuations.

April 14, 2003

Well, I have confirmation some thing important: it is CDT, not CST right now. That is all.

OK, not quite ALL. The weather is back up into the 60’s and 70’s after the little snowfall last week, so I’ve been mostly in shorts for the last few days–at least during the day. It’s gotten down into the 50’s and high 40’s at night, so I switch to jeans as the sun goes down. I spent a few hours outside this weekend, and I’ve gotten a bit of a tan, actually. I can tell by looking at my feet where my sandals were. I haven’t been wearing sunblock, however, so I think when I walk to the store this afternoon I may pick up a bottle of that. Or just mooch off someone I know who may have some, either way. Speaking of sitting in the sun, this Wednesday is another day off from classes. This time, it’s Spring Day, another Beloit tradition. Legend has it that at one point in the past either students were taking so many days off in the nice spring weather or there was an organized ditch day by the seniors that the school just threw up its hands and created Spring Day, a day off from classes when they get bands to come and play outside, all sorts of outside activities, all topped off with a meal outside instead of in Commons. I had last Thursday off, and now I have this Wednesday off. Great stuff. Just as well, as my desire to do work is diminishing as the term wraps up. I did little or no homework this weekend despite having a paper due on Tuesday, so today will be a bit rushed. I have a pretty good idea of what I want to talk about in the paper, and as my friend Heather put it, I spend a lot more time thinking about what I want to write about so I actually can leave it until the day before it’s due to write it. She’s partially right, but thankfully, this is one of those times.

I also got another piece of good news: no matter how hard I try, I don’t think I’ll be able to fail my Quant class. The professor handed out scores up to this point for the term, and I’ve got a 245/390. Don’t let that think I’m in as bad shape as you think–I’m above the class average. He’s a really rough grader, and not many people in the class are doing a whole lot better than me. I need exact 275 points to pass the class, only slightly more to get a C, and the only thing left in the course is the massive client project. So essentially I’m going to be investing 40-50 hours (that’s a liberal figure that he threw out to us today) to get 25 points and pass the course…. Naturally I’ll work hard to get as good of a grade as I can, but I’m glad to know that I won’t have to fall over myself and get a coronary to graduate. This is the project I’ve been fearing all term, but now that it’s been presented to me in full, I’m not as worried anymore. Of course, Istill have to DO it.

I watched two more movies this weekend courtesy of Hollywood Video’s $0.99 movie deal. The first one I rented was Swingers, a movie that’s been recommended to me by several people. The plot is a little convoluted (or non-existent, rather), but it was an enjoyable movie. Not nearly as good as some people made it out to be, but I got more than my money’s worth. The second movie was XxX, the Vin Diesel action flick that came out last year. Good stuff. It was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, but I had more fun actually watching it than any other movie I’ve seen in awhile. Almost, at least–”Band of Brothers” probably takes that cake. When I returned them, the slacker in me got the better of my more responsible half, and I rented three more movies: Mission: Impossible, Mission: Impossible 2, and Crocodile Dundee. Now, I can explain all of those. Since I’d gotten XxX, I wanted something else with an action flavor, and MI: 2 is one of the only recent action movies I can think of that I haven’t seen. I’ve only seen the first in the series once, and I remember being extraordinarily confused, so I figured, since I’m renting the second one, I might as well get the first one. Make sense? Crocodile Dundee I rented because my friend Heather has never seen it. She’s obsessed with Australia–one might even call it a fetish to some degree–but she’s never seen this movie. She said that she’s seen parts of it on TV, but never the whole thing. Well this I had to rectify. I’m not exactly sure how many times I’ve ever seen it, but I know that it’s always a movie I’ll stop and watch on TV if I’m channel-surfing–and it’s one quite a bit. I have all three until Friday, and with my day off, I should have plenty of time to go through the lot of them.

My respnsibilities for the rest of the term are shrinking, as is my time here. I’ll get it all done, though. Rest assured. That’s all for now. Have a good week.

Very much sunglasses weather outside.