don't you know by now {you can't turn back}

So. Found my wallet with my school ID and gym card and such tossed in a box like I'd hoped. This is good. The house looks awesome. Also good. Ianto!cat warming up to me. Good as well. I can find my way out of the house and to school by myself (right, then right, then left), which is también bueno, porque no se las calles en la ciudad de Springfield para nada.

Things that are not good.
1. I’m out of money. Paid rent, bought my lab text for a class, bought socks and salad dressing, and that’s all my cash. Scholarship money doesn’t come in until sometime in September. I’ve got my debit card, but there’s only. . . idk, less than $100 accessible (I think minimum balance is $25 or something), and I’m very, very reluctant to dip into that for anything less than dire, dire emergencies. Plus, some of the things I still have to buy include goggles for my lab classes and gloves for one of them (which I’d already gotten and had sitting on top of one of my boxes of stuff to take down here that was sitting in the front room, but I think Mom thought it was a mistake that I was taking them and took them out on a trip to load stuff into the car), and at least for the former I’m hoping to buy a used set from the chemistry department (they sold them last year) for $5, and I highly doubt they take debit cards. Oh, and possibly my poetry (blarg) teacher’s book—the biggest bullshit ever. It’s a mix of literary forms and is therefore less than 1/3 poetry. I’m begging off having it tomorrow because she just added it to the bookstore requirements in the last week, which is unfair, since I did most of my book shopping 3ish weeks ago.

2. None of my clothes fit. Dreaded, but understandable, as Stupid Metabolism Fail has continued. But I’ve still got them all down here, and not enough hangers (something else I need to buy), so my room looks horrid with boxes and such. I did not think enough about how hard getting dressed for school was going to be when I have all of 5 pants/skirts/shorts that fit, only three of which I’m positive I packed. Plus, it’s so fucking impossible to go buy clothes without wanting to, you know, kill myself when I see the sizes. (I know I’m a whiner about this and plenty of people can go “you think you’ve got it bad”, but when you’re used to yourself in one way and then a few months later you’re 40 pounds heavier, it’s a bitch.) My making my own skirts needs to be worked on more, because then there will be no size tags, XD.

3. I’m in the computer lab at the moment because my 1pm organic lab isn’t meeting because it’s the first day of school, but por supuesto, my 4pm biomol int lab is for only 15 minutes or so. I thought about just asking if I could come to the 1pm meeting of my 4pm one, just for today, so I could get out of here, but if we got seats and lab partners and such it would be awkward to come to the next one at the right time.


And the major one.

5!!!!!. After exactly a month grace period where the bizarre computer screen fritzing stopped, last night it started up again. Began slowly, just blue jaggy lines at the bottom of the screen, spread throughout the whole thing (though you could see the background beneath it), then went to the whole screen covered with thick colored lines/blocks, but when I left it alone, it’d resolve for a bit before starting back up again. It finally decided to cooperate last night, and I turned it off and went to sleep eventually. Started it back up this morning in organic chemistry to take notes and it did the same thing, but then went to the grey of it being backlit but with a totally black screen, then went totally black. Rebooted a bazillion times, gave up. Two hours later, tried it again in biomolecular interactions (sort of biochem, I think, hereby known as “biomol int”) and it booted right up with a good screen and everything. Random. Made the mistake of letting it go to screen saver (I was running out of battery and wanted to let the screen turn off so it wouldn’t die), and when the screensaver popped up, so did the blue fritzy lines, and then it went black. That was 2.5 hours ago, and the periodic rebooting I’m doing as I sit by a desktop in the computer lab hasn’t helped.

So. Last ditch, I check out the Toshiba website again, hoping that there’s some kind of magic fix that’s been posted since the last time I looked around to try to fix it. Happen to check the warranty thing, and lo and behold, it didn’t expire in May (right around when it died the first time) like I’d thought. It expires tomorrow.

Natch, the closest warranty repair center is 3 hours back to St. Louis. At this point, I’m mentally calculating time and such to see if I can get out of my last class and drive there before they close. (Answer: probably not. Plus, seriously, I’ve been here for what, not yet 48 hours?) Shipping it to the Toshiba depot won’t work either, as that obviously takes time, but I call them up (thankfully looking like a dork on the campus phone outside the computer lab rather than on my cell as I was on hold for 90% of the 25+ minute call) hoping I can plead my case and have them start a repair ticket for me today that will work under warranty even though it expires tomorrow, and lo and behold that’s exactly how it works. They’re shipping me a box, I’ve got to call UPS and get it picked up (maybe just find a UPS store and drop it off?), and it’s 7-10 day turnaround (hopefully days days and not business days).

They’re telling me to backup my important stuff, as well. I wanted to hold on to my hard drive, you know, just in case, but the guy said that they’d do some tuneup thing too. It worries me a bit—sure, I have problems with Firefox lately I figured I’d take it), and I’m not even sure how I’m going to be able to do that since I can’t see anything to do that. I tried to plug it in to the monitors on the computers here, but no such luck as they’ve got some freaky-arsed digital plug that doesn’t fit.

That’s the suckmost sucky part of it. And why I’d never sent it off to get fixed during the summer like the idiot I am. I didn’t want to be computerless for 10 days. (Plus, I did very, very little during the summer since I slept straight through normal business hours 9 days out of 10 and mostly couldn’t bring myself to leave the house. Fail, I know.) If only I’d done it then, though, because I’ve got note taking things all set up and homework to do and tests to study for (yeah, quiz in biomol int sometime this week) and one of my textbooks is actually on the computer. Also, we have no TV hooked up yet (DVD player, yes, actual broadcast TV no) and as far as I’m aware, not even an ETA on that, so boredom central.

I kind of still want to cry, I’m so frustrated. School and being in a new place and all is stressful enough without my computer dying on me.



ETA: This is what I mean by blue lines fritzing: ( (picture) )
You can see my icons on my desktop underneath a bit on the left. That’s last night, when it would resolve on its own and then do it again, rinse and repeat.
Then it went to. . . idk, think of a shirt with different sized vertical blocks of color. Sometimes it looks like this:
( (another picture) )
Not my computer, obviously, but similar display. It jumps around between being thin lines like that and ones thick enough that only maybe 6-10 of them fit. Of course, now it’s completely black, not even the grey of it still being backlit but with no display.


Also? The bluefritzing picture was taken with my new phone (demonstration purposes being why I didn't resize it like I did with the rest). Pretty good for a $60 (with $30 of minutes included, so more like $30) Net-10 thing, huh? They fixed a lot of my issues with the last one, like actually being able to connect it to a computer (only can access the micro SD card--not included, natch, but I pulled the one from my MP3 player that I kept audiofics on--and it can only take ones up to 2gb, but you can transfer pictures to the card fairly easily and then get to them on the computer) and taking custom ringtones. (Doctor Who theme FTW. I keep getting people to call me to test it and just not picking up so as to LOLOL.) Still can't get to the internet, just the Net-10 website, and it still charges you eight bazillion dollars to even do that when you accidentally hit the button, but you can lock the browser feature so you've got to type the code to open it, so that's saved me quite a few minutes, LOL.
(It is this one: )

Went bowling again last night. Fun. I know I used to be better than this, though, LOL. I can't get a good balance between a ball that's light enough that it doesn't hurt me to throw (as I tend to pull things and twist things while bowling a lot) but one that's heavy enough that when I hit the pins right down the center, they actually all fall down.

I feel vaguely foolish right now, as there's nothing else on TV so I'm watching the volleyball game that's happening in another building less than 500 feet away. But also quite superior, as I'm able to watch the game (or really, listen, as I'm computering) while having the internets and air conditioning and the cocoa rice krispies that I nicked at brunch. It's a tournament, so I might go down at some point and watch one if I have nothing else to do, as I think it's all weekend. Prolly not, though, as the allure of sitting on my bed rather than on uncomfortable bleachers is too great.

It appears that I've misplaced my glasses, which is worrysome. If I knew that they were in my room somewhere, it'd be different, but as I also take them off when I work out (in a different building) and then possibly leave them in my pocket or something while I ride my bike back (meaning falling out is possible), they could really be anywhere.

Still no debit card, thanks credit union people, which means I can't yet join the pre-law frat for mock trial like I need to.

I'm 3/5 of the way to the freshman 15, which is very disturbing. And I'm feeling it, arthritis pain-wise, so we're working on curbing that. Problem is that I can't really account for it--I'd much prefer it if I had been all "LOL, caloriez!" lately, because then not only would I know why it happened, I'd know how to fix it. And as a result, I've gotten rather paranoid, all "Did they mix up the lines and maybe it's not really diet soda in the fountain?" and "Maybe that raspberry salad dressing isn't really only 15 calories!" and such.

Genetics test yesterday was not fun. There was a big long list of dates and events to memorize--some of these events had names associated with them. The instructions said to be able to match dates and events, I was able to do so. Problem was, about half of that matching section was events and names. When it gave me the event, I could tell you the year, but when that wasn't what they were asking, it did me no good. I'm not excited about the score for that exam.

Got up at 8 to take a practice L.S.A.T. (which I had to punctuate to stop spellcheck from changing to "last", grr) this morning, just for fun. I love the logic games section. In that I've always found those things fun. But man, do I spend a long time thinking about them! I'll really have to work on that. I had barely more than half the answers down before time was up on that section (though I'd worked on more problems than that, I only totally finished up/selected a final answer for 13/24). But I finished all the other sections quite early, so I marked where I was on the logic games section and went back and finished it with my extra time; I didn't know that there was no guessing penalty, so I had left the remaining 11 blank, which was quite conducive to going back.

Therefore, I've got three scores that I pulled out to look at, LOL: the score I got leaving the back 11 of the logic section blank, the score I got with the logic section completed (which required extending the time by about 12 minutes), and the score I would get assuming I guessed on the back 11 and got 3 (1/4 ish) correct. The third one is probably the most accurate, but it's the one for which I'm guessing on the actual L.S.A.T. index for (as I didn't know that guessing had no penalty until after I looked up the index for my other two raw scores--I just figured it out based on a little bit of math to find its place in the middle of the other two. Since it's bell curved, that isn't actually right, but should be close--I checked it on the raw score/index chart for another test that the two scores I had data for matched up with, so it probably varies no more than +/- 1.)

I'm satisfied. Never having seen the test before (not even knowing the structure of it, actually--I walked in completely blind) and with no prep, I got a 164 (with time, no guessing)/ 173 (without time)/ 170 (with time and guessing), 170 being my more accurate number as to what I'd actually get. Which, according to the 1998-2001 numbers (idk how much they apply now, but it's the best I can find), is the 98.21 percentile.

So, erm, damn. Might be having to go to law school. I don't anticipate scoring nearly as well on the MCATs, as they're so much more technical with the science and so. This was very verbal and logic based, which are skills of mine.

OMG, my mouth. Pain. It took them ages to get the temporary crown on/to fit, and my gums were screaming the entire time.

OMG, my wallet. Empty. The crown costs almost as much as the actual root canal? W. T. F.

Didn't end up going back to school, as my 1 hour appointment ended up being two as the receptionist that told me one evidently had no idea what she was talking about, and it wasn't worth driving back and parking and getting out, etc, all for only 15 minutes of my last class. And I was in pain (Still am. Kick in already, Advil!) and already had missed the pizza luncheon that I'd been saving calories all last week for, and more importantly (*cough*bullshit*cough*--nothing is more important than pizza when you've been looking forward to it for more than a week), the points I should have gotten for recruiting somebody to go with me to learn about the marketing program, which pissed me off.

I may not have mentioned (though I think I have) that they're redoing one of the highways in my city. Whatever, it's one I don't use. Except for but. They've screwed with the rest of them to take care of the overflow, as aforementioned highway will be closed for some two years. Gah. The one right by my house is now shoulder-less and with really tiny lanes. Which is scary enough when there's a truck beside you--the news was talking once that they have some tiny number of inches of clearance on each side now, the big 18-wheelers--but is completely terrifying when you're smashed between one of said trucks and somebody pulled over on the lack of shoulder. That is how my drive home went.

But I am home slightly earlier than normal, even for a day when I drive, which is nice. And enjoying a tuna melt (you know, in the sense that it hurts to breathe, much less chew around the left side of my mouth, but I was hungry enough that I decided to do it anyway). Except some facsimile of one, as I don't actually know what a tuna melt is and thus made a sandwich out of a piece of toast, a slightly melted slice of cheese, and some tuna salad, which just sounded about right for something called a tuna melt. The cheese was a waste, though, as I couldn't taste it on there after I lumped on the tuna, which was sad, if only because it was fat-free cheese, which isn't cheap.

Still haven't heard anything about my calculator. I'm really angry. Like, every time I think about it I get so furious that I want to cry.

Because my parents just shelled out a whole bunch of money for IB tests at the end of the year, pretty soon they're going to have to pay more for AP tests, as soon as I get around to signing up for them the college entrance exams, and earlier they paid for this mini medical school thing I'm doing, all in all being upwards of $500. They can't bloody afford that already, much less a new $100 graphing calculator also. (And mine was pretty and translucent blue and nobody else had one like that [which makes me think it should be easy to find if the people at school actually would put any effort into it] and it was from Vermont and I loved it and I'm making myself cry now because I'm weepy like that and it's late and I'm tired so I'll stop.) So I've just been borrowing them from random people for math and science tests, being nearly late to class trying to find somebody to get one from or return it to them, and doing all my math and science homework on random crappy scientific calculators that won't find the derivatives like I need them to, so I'm hand doing everything and it's taking uber-longer.

I'm like going into hibernation or something. I've been eating crazy much in the past week or so and being really exhausted, even when I'm getting 6 or so hours of sleep. *Is bad.* Because I'm already gaining weight and I'd bet people are starting to get annoyed with my constant yawning in class. And it's hard for me to do my homework when it takes killer long and I just don't have the energy to stay awake that late. Like now. Though I've been trying to catch up on my email instead of actually writing my bloody Chem lab, which is dumb and wrong and so now I'm going to get less than the 4 hours that I've been trying to get each night (because my doctor said so and I actually sort of like her) and I had been doing pretty good with the 4 hours, but it's looking like I won't be getting anywhere near that for the rest of the week.

Anyway. Work. Now.