Whee...adjusting to school and work

At last, a chance to blog. It's been a busy week, with school starting, changes in my work schedule because of it, and even some social activities.
School is good so far, despite the adjustment to getting up very early. I'm up at 6:30 a.m., with classes starting at 8:00 on Monday and Wednesday, or 8:30 on Friday. Add to that my work, which goes till 9:30 at least, and it makes for a long day. I'm glad to be able to recover on the other days! I have homework already, of course, and I needed to replace my printer. Darn thing starts off fine, then fades out halfway through the page. The ink is full, so I can't figure out what's going on. I think it's just worn out, as it was a cheap one to begin with. Luckily, I found another one that uses the same cartridges. Our EMT lectures have powerpoint slides, and we need to print out copies to make notes with.
I'm grateful to my friend Ryan for giving me a calculator to use for my algebra class. The prof prefers that we use them, which is very unusual to me. I can see his point, though, as the process of doing the algebra is far more important to learn, and we should all know math by now, so why waste time on doing it all by hand. I still do some of it in my head, though!
We don't have class tomorrow, for the MLK, Jr. holiday, but that just gives me a chance to catch up for Wednesday's class. There's a lot to learn, and I'm glad that I have a whole semester to do it in. I'm not sure which class will be hardest, so I'm trying to take it a bit at a time. There are many changes in the whole classroom setting, especially the online part. Yeah....last time I was in college for any length of time, there was no such thing! Now, my textbooks come with DVDs and online materials that are required for quizzes and tests. Very strange.
I have also had to break down and get a coffeemaker. It's a 4-cup, freecycled, but it's enough to get me through a morning. Finally found a use for the travel mug I got at the Woodwind/Brasswind! I'm not a big coffee drinker, honestly, but I may turn into one at this rate. I got myself some good coffee, too. All I need are some filters, and I'm running some weak vinegar water through it to make sure it's clean.
I also managed to come up with a better desktop computer over the weekend, on the extreme cheap, and have been putting it together. I'm missing some of my disks, so it was trial and error getting it going. Had to reformat and do a fresh install on the HD, and all I had available was XP Home. I much prefer Pro, and now that I've got the thing set up and online, I think I'll be upgrading at least that far soon. I'm tempted to try out Windows 7 Beta, and there's always Ubuntu, if I can ever manage to get it downloaded.
As for the socializing, one of my co-workers hosted a RockBand party at a local gaming center. I've never played it before, and was happy to find out that there's even a way to play by singing! Don't know how it compares to Guitar Hero, which I've also not played, but I really had a fun time with the crew from work. That was Saturday, and Friday was the ASFS meeting (which I missed 95% of, naturally) so I got to have some weekend fun. Coming up this Friday, a band containing two other co-workers is playing at a local bar, so I'll be going to that, I think.
All work and no play makes Harriet a raving stress-bomb, so hopefully I'll get to keep balancing the two.

Part of why I haven't posted lately...

I've been working on this!



This was the entry in the Gingerbread House competition for the Midwinter event in the Barony of al-Barran, Outlands. It was a group effort by the local bros and watchees: Rhianwen, Ealasaid, Morgan, Tiou, Rurik and myself, with additional help from Brian (Tiou's bf), Trey/Tenkai (Rurik's buddy) and Tanley (friend of mine w/gingerbread experience). It took 4 days of work, with final assembly done on site. Omar did the label placards, "Peaceful Pastoral Nomads".
We have the yurt on a cardboard cart, with oxen, brothers, and even a leashed Scot (complete with kilt). The decorations are done in icing, licorice, peppermint sticks, and pretzels, and if I can get a good close-up picture, there are even tiny date bits for "ox plops" that are being collected behind the cart. Other than the cart and the ground board, the rest is edible and even tasty!
I was honestly hoping for more competition. There were two really cute entries in the children's division, and a very nice gothic castle with gummy fish in the moat for the other adult entry. We gave the castle a Mongol guard after the judging, with the owner's permission, to guard the fish in the moat.
I think we came in second for the table-setting competition, but the winners did a complete traditional Japanese setup, and even brought their own tables! Very nicely done, indeed. The codpiece competition was a bit of a bust, unfortunately, for lack of entries. The spiffy garb was nice to see, and I forget the fellow who won it, but he looked sharp.
More pics to come eventually, but I'll probably put them in the flickr and just post a link.
Besides, it was worth waiting till this was done to make it my 100th post in this blog!