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One of the few things that can help salvage a day after only getting five hours of slee? Doing really well in orgo lab. It was recrystallizations, which I think are fun, personally. The first one took me three tries to get really good crystals out of, but the second, harder one? First try. The TA seemed impressed - he said most people can't get the purity and crystal quality I had right off. This will make work this afternoon a little more tolerable, I hope.

The five hours of sleep thing is my own fault, too....through a somewhat convoluted and not very interesting chain of events, Aaron (one of the other Shadowrun players) and I ended up heading over to our GM's house (he lives with the third Shadowrun player), around 8:30, and at that point, it was too late, and our GM was feeling too sick to run an RP that night, so we ended up playing the A Game of Thrones boardgame until around 12:15, as we lost track of time. Unfortunately, at that point, all the easy buses back to my place had stopped running, just leaving one of the night buses that ran every half an hour. Get on, ask the bus driver the best way to get back home and he says 'Get off at Granville and pick up the next bus coming down there, I have to cut through downtown first', so I do so. And then wait, and wait, and wait for the next bus, and when it finally comes - it's the same bus driver! Which made me rather unhappy after having waited in the cold outside for twenty minutes. But I got home, and got talked into joining another campaign, so it's all okay in the end.

-Tabletop RP
-See Rocky Horror, the whole she-bang (which means finding someone who's been to take me, I think)
-Learn Japanese
-Go clubbing
-Take part in real science - first year school labs = not cutting it here. (once I have some lab experience, ie, after first year labs are done, I am so volunteering to be a cleaning-bitch for someone in Microbi, because I really am that sad).
-Do something with my OCs, either fic or RP.
-Learn swordfighting.
-Become a better photographer.
-Have really fantastic sex.

So, we were talking about FF7 shit at lunch again, mostly because I was trying to help Josh troubleshoot his game difficulties, which lead to back to Rufus and his parachute and how he looks a little too banged up in AC for that to have happened.

Michelle: Maybe he used it and it just didn't open. Great big flying leap out the window and all.
Me: And then was all 'Oh shit!'. Although, the healing mechanics in FF7 are kinda vague.
Me: Like the whole Phoenix-Down-on-Aeris thing. Although I think that there may be a difference between dead and mostly dead. And Aeris is very very dead.
Michelle: If they're all dead, there's only one thing you can do...
Both: Go through their pockets and look for loose change!

Michelle is also like Hojo, only pretty, but we won't get into that tonight. Also, finals all over. I am on vacation now! Whoooo! And now I make more sexy Rufus icons.

(Encompassing Tales from the GSA, Why I Love Science, Part Two and The Great Moth Genocide of '05)

So. Tuesday was our first GSA meeting. I use the term 'meeting' lightly here, because it was only me and one of the juniors - Mr. Barys left after five minutes saying he had things to do. But it was alright, the junior was cool, and we chatted for a while and ate all the snacks ourselves. Mr. Barys said he'd coerce more juniors into coming by threatening to fail them or something - he's an awful man, but that's why we love him XD;

My biotech professor also shared an amusing anecdote the other day with us - apparently she was at a seminar of some sort with a lot of other biochemits, and the lecturer was talking about something that had to do with phosphorylation, which apparently caused the head of her department to stand up and shout 'I do believe in phosphorylation! I do!'. This in turn caused a bunch of other biochemist to stand up and shout 'Hallelujah!', thus proving that scientists are fun.

I also got home from work tonight to be informed that what I thought was a minor moth outbreak in a package of crackers and some very old hot chocolate mix was actually a full-fledged moth invasion. Apparently there were giant colonies living in two half-finished jars of peanuts. I'm...really glad I wasn't there to see that, as I would have been totally grossed out.

Also, seeing Patrick Stewart with hair is so weird.

...Every time Auron calls Braska 'my lord', I start snickering. At least he doesn't use any of the variations Horatio does - "Here, sweet lord, at your service." I know that this was totally unsketchy back in Elizabethan times, but still. And Hamlet/Horatio and Braska/Auron have so many parallels. Down to the 'Would you stop calling me that?' 'No. My lord.' Horatio is way more of a wuss than Auron, though, but that's okay, because Hamlet is the l33t swordsman in that relationship.

Speaking of Hamlet, I never posted about seeing Hamlet in Boston Common. Aside from the set, which I didn't like, it was wonderful. The casting was totally spot-on, and the acting was great. Act 1, Scene II, where Hamlet and Horatio meet for the first time in the play? Hamlet picks Horatio up in this big hug and spins him around. It was beautiful. And they had the most perfect death scene ever. Right before or after (can't remember which) the "Good night, sweet prince, and flights of angels sing you to your rest." line, Horatio actually kisses Hamlet on the forehead. I was going 'Yes! Yes!' as quietly as I could manage XD;

Garden update: It's actually looking like a garden instead of a living version of 'Weeds of New England', although there's a corner with a bean plant gone wild I still have to deal with, along with some tidying up. I'm pleased, even if my hands and knees are staring to hurt.

So, after the conclusion of part one of my adventures, I pretty much sat around and listened to music and painted my Yuna-obi until Mara came home. We had a late lunch, after which we decided we were going to get some dessert somewhere. So, we walked three miles, only to discover the place we were going to had been closed for half an hour. We began walking the three miles back, at which point it started pouring rain - it was actually rather nice, because it was warm enough out that we weren't freezing, and we both love the feel and smell of rain. We ended up taking Mara's car to the farther away ice cream place, where I had a death-by-peanut-butter sundae - peanut butter icecream with peanut butter cups in it, Reese's Pieces on top, warm peanut butter sauce, whipped cream, and a cherry. It was wonderful. We went back to Mara's house, and sat around and talked for a couple of hours before deciding to watch Phantom at one am in the morning.

This...was a lot of crack XD We made bad jokes and commentary and sang along to the songs. Some highlights:
-Phantom^TM brand cake mix. And muffin mix, and brownie mix.
-Fanboy!Phantom, both of Christine and Darth Vader
-Phantom/Raoul rope bondage porn XD
...There are more I'm not remembering, ask Mara XD;;

Monday we got up early (for me, anyway), and took the train into Boston. We started out with an early lunch at Legal Seafoods, where I had their wonderfully delicous clam chowder, and we split an order of excellent apple crisp. We also browsed through a few stationary stores in the Prudential Center. From there, we went to the Boston Public Library, which a brief peek into the Fairmont, which is absolutely gorgeous. The library is rather nice too, and we spent a while there, looking at the pretty rooms and the tons and tons of books. We made kind of a spontaneous stop in the Old South Church after that, and again admired all the pretty architechture. Next, we went to Keezer's and spent a while trying on suits and tailcoats and tophats, and discovering Kaori Yuki is on slightly less crack than previously thought. Unable to enter Keezer's without coming out with something new, I bought a nice dark silver tie. Then, we decided to do something that was in retrospect, not the brightest idea - walk from Central Square to Harvard on a hot summer day with huge backpacks. We actually made it alright, with a stop into an art store and another stationary shop. We didn't have much time in Harvard before we had to leave - Mara almost missed her train, while mine left half an hour late.

Over all, the weekend was fun, if kind of tiring. It was nice to get out for a while, though.

(There will - unfortunately for the rest of you - more boring moody current-situation shit in a bit. It is unending, it seems -.-)

Hamlet presentations went over surprisingly well - there were good bits, there were bad bits, but it was enjoyable. I have tons of photos, I'll share them once I've got them uploaded and edited and what-not.

Now...where to begin on talking about this year. Surprisingly enough, through all of my bitching and stressing and lack of sleep, it was really good. I had some really wonderful people in my class, and some wonderful teachers, and, well, I felt like I belonged, in a way I never have. I was pushed to my limits, past them, and it really showed what I can do when I need to.

I'll start with the teachers, it's easiest that way. Mr. Gagne was probably my favorite - he was such a huge shameless geek, and he was witty, which always made his classes a lot of fun. I'm happy he's going to be there next year. Then there's Mrs. Ferrell. I had my doubts at the begining of the year - she seemed nice, but without much inner strength to back it up. But she turned out to be a really great person, and I loved her class a lot. She's retiring now that the year is over, which makes me sad ;; But she promised to come back for our graduation next year. Mr. Barys - I hated his class material (mostly because I was bad at it), but I love him. He wears sandals all the time and is very casual and friendly and funny. Mrs. Bonneau was great too - she's tiny, and acts almost like a kid sometimes - she gets even more excited by snow days than we do. Mrs. Lang was nice too, even if I think I kind of frustrated her during RS - she was my advisor. We actually thought she'd be moving on to a different job next year, but she was offered a permanent position as of the day before yesterday, so she's staying, yay! Mrs. Dodge I had kind of a love-hate relationship with, as is evidenced by some of my posts here, but I think by the end of the year, I've grown to like her. She's leaving, too, and it's going to be wierd without her there next year.

...And the second part of this will come later, I think. I'm going to take a nap before Star Wars =.=

I have been seized by an overwhelming desire to play FF7 again, which is a bit odd coming in the middle of trying to pull together an essay about Horatio (I have a lot to say, I'm just having trouble pulling it all together). Maybe I'll go play in a bit, and hopefully will have better luck coming up with a name for my Turk XD; He's got most of a backstory and a personality, but no name ^^;

Also, to the people who I promised I'd send copies of FF7 - my install disk has disappeared, so I have to wait until Jon copies his to give to me. It will get done, I swear, but it may take a little while ^^;

Kelsey, Claudia, and possibly Mara - May is open-FST month XD Come on, you know you wanna~ It'd be fun :D

Also, the Branagh!Hamlet loses for it's Horatio and the overplaying, IMO, of the pre-play scene, but it winz for teh ghei XD And the costumes. Shiny Victorian ooooh.

Also, Horatio is even sweeter than I first noticed in the text (not in the movie, I noticed it when we were doing our dramatic reading). Aw. I <3 him.

...And I think Mrs. Ferrell is amused by my enthusiasm for this play, particularly for Horatio.

I had a sense that it was going to be a bad week, or at least a bad day, when I woke up fifteen minutes late, had no soda for lunch or tea for breakfast, found that the handle of one of our two bathrooms is broken and won't open, and had my mom get angry about my brother fiddling around with the router over the weekend. I had the realization of why this was happening when Nick pointed out that the date, 4/4, could also be written as 4/04. "Error, cannot find the requested good day", most likely. Bah.

Anyway, off to do homework. Or read. Or something. I dunno.

(also, for those who care, White Wolf has PDF of the Victorian Age character sheet avalible here. The one in the sourcebook doesn't look great printed, 'cause of the scan-quality)

EDIT: I want shadow magic. But I can't have shadow magic. Nooo T.T