I need new struts on both sides in the back, a right lower ball-joint, at leats one new tire, and a four-wheel alignment. Total cost of all components, installation, and services: approximately $750.00.

As it stands right now, I have a home theatre receiver and CD player sitting in the living room that are looking mighty pretty without any speakers. Yep, spent about $450 on the pair, was planning on ordering/buying a pair of speakers in the next month or two. Obviously, this isn't happening, now, so I can just go and push all the buttons I want and pretend I have sound right now. Quite entertaining, I must say.

Tonight at work I successfully pissed off my supervisor when I told her I would not be in on Saturday night, so that I can go home and try to get everything fixed this weekend. I also signed my hours off to someone else for the late shift tomorrow night so that I can drive home as soon as I get out of work. She was giving me an evil glare every time she was around me, so I assume I'll be having some fun next week, getting all the jobs I hate.

The part that makes things seem the most sad is that if I leave tomorrow night and don't come back till Monday (like I'm planning), it will make this the longest period I have spent at home since I moved up here -- and it's all because of my car. I was at home for two days for Thanksgiving, two for Christmas, two during Spring Break, one for New Years, and two more one-day excursions at various times. And now, because of my car, I'm going to be there for three days, most likely. Kind of makes me question my priorities and what I consider important, and I can't imagine my parents haven't thought the same thing.

And to think I actually had plans to get some schoolwork done this weekend so that I don't need to worry about it later this semester. I really am an idiot, and here's proof:

Nittany: geesh!
agnosticy: I need to keep you around to prove that I am, in fact, stupid...
Nittany: i'm starting to see that!
agnosticy: you have a purpose and i have proof...we're both happy...
Nittany: hahahahah

I wasn't in the mood for all this when it started, and I'm certainly not in the mood for it now. I just want to have two consistent months where something doesn't go seriously wrong with my car so I can actually get back to not living week-to-week on money; is that too much to ask?

Apparently so.

Under normal circumstances I would be very, very upset with a 48% -- since the class is relatively easy to begin with -- but what happened this morning was not what I would place under "normal circumstances," by any rate. I'm not at all pleased with the grade, but I'm thankful the professor let me take the exam in the first place and I had the chance to do as well as I did. Even with this mishap, I still only have to get a 71% on the final to pass the class, so I shouldn't be to upset, I suppose.

Now I get to do homework and study for another exam I have tomorrow. I hope my alarm clock cooperates then, as I'll not have anyone to take me to class should it not.

I have no clue what happened. My alarm was set for 8:00 and Chris said he heard it going off around 10:00. Basically, for it to even begin to make sense, I would have had to get out of bed (since my alarm is on the other side of the room -- for exactly this reason) and push the 'Snooze' button 13 times. I find it hard to believe I did this without actually waking up at any point. I think it's time to get a new alarm clock, since this is not the first time it has decided when it will and won't go off on its own.

At any rate, I got up and got to class witin 10 minutes (Thank you, Chris), which meant I had 20 minutes to complete a 33-question exam of the rather involved multiple-choice variety. Thankfully, my professor allowed me to take the test in the first place, regardless of how much time I had. Some points are better than a 'zero.' I finished the test with about 30 seconds to spare (and ahead of some of the people who had presumably been there the entire 50 minutes; don't ask me how), though I can't remember most of the questions or my answers for them.

Just before I got done, the professor told everyone not to second-guess themselves on the test because it wasn't as complicated as we were making it seem (his opinion, I guess). After I handed my test in, I went to him to apologize for coming in so late and he asked me how I thought I did. I, of course, looked on the bright side and said that at least I didn't have time for second-guessing.

After I had come down off my adrenaline high in my next class, I had a hard time focusing and staying awake, which is natural, but I got a spike of anger when we received our mid-term papers back and I found out I only received an 88%, when the people whose papers I had read and were obviously worse than mine received higher or comparable grades. I have no clue why my grades are always determined on a scale different from anyone else. At least we got a 96% on our group teaching assignment, to help offset it.

My car gets inspected tomorrow at 9:00 AM. I'll be upset if it doesn't pass, but I won't be surprised, with the way this week has gone thus far. I know it needs new struts on the front, but they shouldn't say too much about it, with any luck (which I seem to not have lately, so who knows).

I don't know how many people have truly thought about it, but in an evolutionary sense, you all come from a long line of winners. Your parents. Your grandparents. The first Australopithecine ancestor you are descended from that links you to everyone else in this room. From that primate, back to the first mammal. From that mammal, back to the first terrestrial organism. From that land-dweller back to the first multicellular organism in the seas, and so on.

We all come from a line of organism that if they had not posessed the genetic makeup they did or had not made the decisions they made, you would not be here today. No matter how ugly, how maladaptive your ancestors may have been, the fact is that they were successful enough to produce the offspring that produced the offspring that eventually produced you.

Because you are here, we know for a fact that none of your ancestors have ever forsaken their own reproductive endeavors and claimed celibacy to ensure the well-being of the species, which is why we can't possibly expect to have everyone come to an agreeance on environmental and population policies, given our recent histories and innate biological tendencies. There will be those who agree to population control measures, and those who don't. There will be those who don't reproduce, and those who make up for the space and resources saved by reproducing more if the means are available.

It is because of these facts that we can be grateful that culture has evolved the ability to transcend our biological restraints and develop new views of how our lives should be lived, for it is only culture that can make us rise above the fate of other species and take control of whether we are going to keep our numbers small and lead a prosporous life or let the population grow to this planet's carrying capacity and all of us live of the brink of existence while fighting such things as famine, disease, and conflict.

Yesterday, my glasses broke for absolutely no reason. I took them off for a few seconds to try the old wipe-my-eyes-to-avoid-falling-asleep-in-class trick, and the stupid hinge about fell apart. No problem, I'll just take the to Wal-mart and get them fixed, right? Wrong. Not only is the frame I have discontinued, but no store within two hours has a pair lying around from which I could get the part necessary to fix it. Additionally, all the Wal-mart vision centers are not owned by the same collective group the way the auto centers are, so I had to wait for the store up here to get approval from the store in Hagerstown, MD, to credit me with the money necessary to pick out a new pair. Great, I love shopping for glasses. Especially when the place where I'm shopping doesn't have the lenses I need and has to special order them, which will take about a week. So, if my glasses are broken, what, you may ask, am I wearing? A pair of glasses with one black temple and one gold temple, since gold is the only color they had that would work with the black frames. And, to top it all off, this Wal-mart is more expensive than the one in Hagerstown, so I ended up having to pay $26 to get new glasses, even though I still have over a year's warranty left on the old ones. Quick note to the Walton family: You're mine!!!

I scheduled my courses for the upcoming summer and fall semesters yesterday. Turns out that Penn State has decided not to offer enough credits for me to take a full schedule this fall, but they don't offer all the ones I need to graduate, so I basically have two choices -- I can either kiss my financial aid goodbye and enroll part-time, or I can pick up another minor and try to get the remaining credits done by the end of next summer. So I am now minoring in Sociology, in addition to my major in Biology and previous minor in Science, Technology, and Society. I went from having about 21 credits to graduation after this semester to having about 33, which should be easy to do in the four semesters I'm planning on living here for, though it means I will most likely be graduating at the end of next summer, rather than the beginning. This all better be worth it in the end, that's all I have to say.

My CD player got here yesterday, and my receiver is scheduled to be delivered on Thursday, so I'll at least have somehting to show for the fact that stupid small expenses keep popping up (vehicle inspection, eyeglass repair, money required for class projects, etc.) and I'm basically broke at this point in time. I swear I'm going to learn how to manage my money at some point, I really am. I may be living the wonderful life of paycheck to paycheck, but at least I don't have any credit cards, right?

I reformatted the hard drives today, did a clean install of Windows, did not install any unnecessary programs, and it's still crashing when I play any sort of media file. I'd say that pretty much narrows it down to a hardware problem, which is sort of sad since I've replaced all the essential components within the computer. Next step? Who knows...

I had a bunch of homework I wanted to get done today, but managed to do none of it, so I guess I still have tomorrow, though it will most likely be a virtual wash due to the fact that I still have to work tonight and will most likely sleep till the afternoon.

My receiver and CD player will both be coming this week, so that gives me one more distraction to enjoy. Where would I be without the little things in life to keep me busy? Probably obsessing over the same sorts of stupid things I've spent so much time worrying/thinking about the last couple years, which are mostly related to women and the problems with them. Today, as with most other days, those previous thoughts were brought into question at one point, so of course everything is sort of swirling around in my head again as to exactly what I think about a lot of people and things. I don't necessarily understand what my views are, and I usually prefer acting like I don't care. Some people just can't let my ignorance rest, though.

I reformatted the hard drives today, did a clean install of Windows, did not install any unnecessary programs, and it's still crashing when I play any sort of media file. I'd say that pretty much narrows it down to a hardware problem, which is sort of sad since I've replaced all the essential components within the computer. Next step? Who knows...

I had a bunch of homework I wanted to get done today, but managed to do none of it, so I guess I still have tomorrow, though it will most likely be a virtual wash due to the fact that I still have to work tonight and will most likely sleep till the afternoon.

My receiver and CD player will both be coming this week, so that gives me one more distraction to enjoy. Where would I be without the little things in life to keep me busy? Probably obsessing over the same sorts of stupid things I've spent so much time worrying/thinking about the last couple years, which are mostly related to women and the problems with them. Today, as with most other days, those previous thoughts were brought into question at one point, so of course everything is sort of swirling around in my head again as to exactly what I think about a lot of people and things. I don't necessarily understand what my views are, and I usually prefer acting like I don't care. Some people just can't let my ignorance rest, though.

Not a whole lot has been going on lately, as I've been living my normal life (working, sleeping, eating, and schooling). Work's been a bit rougher than usual, but I finally get two days off, so I can relax once again, I suppose. I'm looking forward to the point this summer when I actually have plans to do somehting and can take my vacation time and get away from things for while (like that would actually work, anyhow).

I got my new hard drive yesterday, installed it, got a virus within two hours (neglected to install VirusScan before checking my e-mail), and had my computer lock up on me last night when I got home from work. I have now replaced the entire computer -- except for the monitor, keyboard, speakers, power cord, and UPS -- and have reformatted the hard drive twice. Somehow, the problem still eludes me. I'm beginning to think the problem is currently linked to Winamp, since that seems to be the only time it's crashing on. I figure I'll just avoid running it for a few days and see how things go.

On a this-is-how-my-luck-goes note, we had a pool going at work for Saturday's Super 6 drawing. Our supervisor purchased $48 in tickets (24 of us throwing in $2/person), and we somehow managed to win absolutely nothing. Odds of that happening? About 1:2.82353. We definitely managed to beat the odds, just in the wrong direction.

I'm still working on getting all the things set back up on my computer in the manner that I prefer them, and I am currently in need of a fight with these people to reauthorize my copy of Office XP, since I am trying to install it for the fourth time. Though it has never been installed on two different computers at the same time, every install is considered unique and Penn State licensees only get two installs. Basically, all my e-mail and instant-messaging capabilities may be hindered for a few days. Stupid computer.

The first run (an early sort for Sunday's paper) went horribly. When we reached the halfway point of alloted time for completing the run, we weren't even one-fourth of the way complete. We never did get done in time, so the boss said we would have to stay until it was complete, which would have been annoying enough if we didn't have to hand-insert papers for three hours. What we did in three hours, we could have done in, at most, 10 minutes using the inserting machine, which we used after the daily run had been completed anyhow. Basically, they just wanted to keep us busy, regardless of how fruitless the job we were doing may have been. Many people were pissed, and a few of them are pretty close to walking out now, so we'll see how things go tonight.

I rode my bike into campus today to do some work in the libraries. I was sort of tired till I got back, which is sad. Need to work on that, I suppose.

On an off-the-wall note, why is it the qualities that some people find so annoying about me are the same ones that other people find so intriguing? One person says I think too much, the next rephrases the idea in a positive manner, saying I am reasonable and rational. One person says that I'm boring and annoying, the next says I'm entertaining and interesting. Make up your collective mind, people. I don't necessarily have any vested interest in trying to impress any of you, but I would greatly enjoy it if I could figure what it is you like/dislike about me for the sake of curiosity.

Nothing significant has happened, so there's not much to report.

Dammit.