BIO150: Term Test 3 and 3 cups of coffee.

"Uh, let’s get back to the test please.
What mathy stuff do I need to know?"
-- Prof James Thomson (Study Guide)

I think after the term test, I'll be posting something like "How To" or "How Not To" -- it'll be fun for me and a great way to alleviate stresses caused by the BIO150 test (tomorrow) forget about the miserable CHM139 test (I don't know how many of you checked your marks, but wow; that was probably the worst or best move -- depending on your mark). I haven't checked mine yet and I plan to keep it that way. Why do that to yourself before two major and upcoming tests? Be logical, folks.

I think the first of my "Hows" will be "How Not To Study," which I'm so good at doing. The bad-method of studying, I mean (which can sometimes be nonexistent, which is also very terrible). But for tonight, I think a good 3-cups of coffee (in spaced intervals -- not like what I did the last time, which was 2 huge mugs in 1 hour, which was a tremendously terrible decision) will suffice.

Till 2:00AM then!
Huzzah.

Reading Week: It's zooming by me.

"I've been cautious with the words I extend.
Allow this year before the world starts to end."
-- Coheed and Cambria
(The Light & The Glass, In Keeping Secrets of the Silent Earth: 3)

The week is going by unbelievably, incredibly quickly. I've a shitload to still do and mind my profanities, but that's really the only way (the best way) to describe everything. I still have a bajillion little itty bitty things to do, and I'm avoiding calculus like the plague. I hardly understand what I'm doing right now, but I suppose this is what you call procrastination.

Go listen to Coheed & Cambria on MySpace. I don't know if anyone's into that type of music, what with the lead singer nearing a half-baked falsetto, but they're fantastic musicians. If you get the chance to, go listen to "The Light & The Glass" and "The Crowing" and "A Favour House Atlantic". I've been listening to these guys since ninth grade. Or earlier, I think. My memory fails me.

Ah, back to the demon, better known as re-listening to BIO150 lectures I paid no heed to.

Le jour d'amour: CHM139 test, anyone? With sugar?

“The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you,
not knowing how blind that was.
Lovers don't finally meet somewhere.
They're in each other all along.”
-- Jalal ad-Din Rumi

I ♥ U of T.

And I'm really thinking I don't. But I do. It's a really difficult kind of love, the type you work hard for, the type you slave over and try to fix. It's a give-take, love-hate kind of relationship. The type you have with your annoying older/younger sibling. But I suppose, in the end, I don't regret coming to this congregation of the smartest, grayest, dullest, harshest minds alive. It's the full package you get: hard tests, big campus, crazy days, and the like.

So what about that chem test, huh? How's that sounding right about now? Pretty snazzy. I'm kidding. I'm being so sarcastic right now it's killing me. And I know I wanted to post something tonight -- as opposed to this lame post -- but in the spirit of being a miserly, singular, un-betrothed organism amidst a mass of possible couplets, I refuse. I'm going to wallow in coffee, Ann Brashares, and the friends I so love.

If anyone's reading. If anyone's out there...
You know, in the vast world of study-dom...
I say you put a heart on your test.
I plan to. Spread the love? Ha.

GPA: Are you willing to work for it?

"The big secret in life is that there is no big secret.
Whatever your goal, you can get there if you're willing to work."
-- Oprah Winfrey

Touchy subject, much? Yeah. I know. It's terrible to bring this topic up, but as you approach the midterm of a second term, of a deathly term, of first year -- you have to wonder and worry if you did enough, if you did well, if you did so and so. So yes. GPA matters. The wellness of such an acronym comes naturally to some, comes with work for others, and sometimes, it just feels like it will never come. Don't lose faith. I certainly can't/won't/shouldn't. If I was that easy to push around, I'm pretty sure I would have given up long time ago and just gone straight in another direction.

GPA. Are you willing to work for it? I know a lot of people say they're working hard for a decent, or a better one, and I'm not going to doubt you. Each person has their personal threshold of work ethic and so forth, but I'm pretty sure perfection is possible. I'm pretty sure a 4.0 is possible. I'm pretty sure that a 2.7 can go to a 4.0, if you try hard enough. Key word is try. How often do we do that? We whine. We complain. We nitpick at all the bad points in the course -- yet instead of making peace with our downfalls and learning from them, we wage verbal and mental wars. Our only enemy in this, is ourself. We are the only impediment to our success.

So yes. I am willing to work for it.

I paid a good effin' sum to come here, to this U of T menagerie of minds...
And so I think I milk it for what it's worth and get my well-deserved mark.

Peace out? Perhaps.

Snow: Makes The World Go--Pause.

"A hundred bodies fill this room.
And all their faces overdone.
Pain is foreign, foreign to us."
-- Meg&Dia (Something Real CD)

So besides the onslaught of massive amounts of flaky, dainty white snowflakes, the stoppage of classes, the usefulness of the U of T Snowline and the missing of certain tutorials... a lot has happened that the snow will never hinder. For example -- the upcoming death-threat. The funeral toll. The chemistry golem. The CHM139 Midterm. It's all on its way. And yes, all this exciting hubbub takes place on -- you guessed it, folks! -- February 14th, the day all single people dread. Well. Now, all U of T freshmen in the Life Sciences can despise the couples-only day even more. Tres chique, n'est pas?

It's even sadder to know that all the greatest pre-Spring movies are coming out on/about this time. Jumper, being one of them, will be sorely missed and its viewing will be pushed into early-Reading Week. Which reminds me -- post-CHM139 midterm -- of how much there is to do. Both physically exhausting and mentally exhausting. Yes, this involves an overhaul on my working habits (i.e. a start on BIO150 papers and other undulating essays) and the crazy, badass supah-fly bouncing-off-the-walls kind of fun (i.e. having casual lunch dates with friends long lost in the midst of anal retentiveness and vile assignments).

So hang in there. Study hard.
Know that knowledge is power.
Power corrupts. Corruption is evil.
Be evil. For the midterm, anyway.

See you on the dark-side, muchachos.

Super Tuesday, early morning Wednesday

"The challenge is to practice politics as the art of making
what appears to be impossible, possible."
-- Hillary Clinton

Hillary's quote. Barack's face.
Am I sending mixed messages? You tell me.
Close Call: Super Tuesday.

I'm not American, so I wouldn't have any idea as to how the voting system really works, but I suppose I should be worried/concerned about the processes of American government. Let me be truthful, let me be honest, let me be stupid -- I had no clue that Super Tuesday was the actual term for this. I didn't even know what was going on. But hey, you have to admit that "Super Tuesday" is the kind of term you use for a Tuesday-fast food meal OR some children's-flavour of ice cream.

Anyways. It's not Tuesday anymore. I've been outside of politics since I dropped POL108, so right now, I'm getting my year's worth of hardcore quasi-international politics. It's early Wednesday and I'm still watching CNN -- it's exciting, I suppose. I like dissecting political strategies with my father, watching my mother fume at certain analyses, and wondering whether or not platform really matters in any of this. If I'm allowed my humble assumptions, I'd like to say that politics is a very good telenovella-gameshow. If you have the right charisma, the right performance, you win. Platform, I believe, is essential, but cannot be more than passionate or empty promises.

Enough of my politicking. I do that enough (that's partially why I stop reading and watching the news; I become a little too argumentative and that boils my mother's blood and raises my father's blood pressure). You can do your politicking -- go watch CNN for the updates.

I won't say who I'm for.
Maybe it's obvious. Maybe it's not.
I'll give you a hint: I'm no Republican.

Upsets in all forms.

"What is defeat? Nothing but education;
nothing but the first step to something better."
-- Wendell Phillips

I didn't watch the Super Bowl this year, but I've heard of the upset -- "Giants Stun Patriots in Super Bowl," or so goes the title. I'm not big on football, but I can relate to the feeling of defeat in many other sports -- hockey, soccer, you name it. I suppose people feel this form of unrelenting upset because there's so much feeling put into watching the game. A lot of empathy is inserted into big-time events, such as this. People even end up feeling utterly devastated after one of these upsets. I can relate. You place a lot of hope in stuff like this -- take, for instance, my little wager on the WJC 2008 championships. I put my entire outlook on this term, my little ounce of hope, on the outcome of the final game.

Sometimes insignificant little things mean a great deal of significance.

And all one can do is learn from these upsets, I guess. There's really nothing you can do. Time won't turn back its hands and rearrange fate. But time can teach a lot of things, post-defeat. So sleep on things that seem hopeless, and wake refreshed and renewed.

Hope, in effect, is found in hopelessness.