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Murphy's Laws on Applied Terror

1. When reviewing your notes before an exam, the most important ones will be illegible.

2.The more studying you did for the exam, the less certain you are as to which answer they want.

3. Eighty percent of the final exam will be based on the one lecture you missed and the one book you didn't read.

4. The night before the history midterm, your biology instructor will assign two hundred pages on Plenarian.
Corollary: Every instructor assumes that you have nothing else to do except study for that instructor's course.

5. If you are given an open-book exam, you will forget your book.
Corollary: If you are given a take-home exam, you will forget where you live.

6. At the end of the semester, you will recall having enrolled in a course at the beginning of the semester - and never attending.

7. Law of Universal Intelligence: the most ill-behaved student in every teacher's class is always one of the brightest ones he can't flunk.

p.s. yes, I am procrastinating on studying for finals =)

A parody! whompwhomp.

We listened to this song in social psych the other day.

 Creed - With Arms Wide Open

But the only thing I could think of for the entire song was this:

Tim Hawkins - My Arms are Broken

It's a good thing the teacher always sits down and closes his eyes for every song he plays for us. I was in tears and biting my finger trying to stop myself from howling with laughter - I just can't take that song seriously anymore, haha =D Hope you get a kick out of this.

My life in a nutshell

"80% of the final exam will be based on the one lecture you missed and the one book you didn’t read."

"College professor–someone who talks in other people’s sleep." ~ W. H. Auden

"Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don't they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as the Prohibition one did, why, in five years we would have the smartest race of people on earth." ~ Will Rogers

"Of course there's a lot of knowledge in universities: the freshmen bring a little in; the seniors don't take much away, so knowledge sort of accumulates." 

~ A. Lawrence Lowell

"The difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has to make sense." 

~ Tom Clancy

"The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together." ~ Erma Bombeck

"Sleeping is no mean art: for its sake one must stay awake all day."
~ Friedrich Nietzsche

"I'm not asleep... but that doesn't mean I'm awake."

"A day without a nap is like a cupcake without frosting." ~ Terri Guillemets

"Inside some of us is a thin person struggling to get out, but they can usually be sedated with a few pieces of chocolate cake."

“But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” ~ Joshua 24:15

More About Me

 I can't for the life of me find the time to come up with a decent blog post of my own, so I'm tagging along with Simply SA and her all-about-me ABC blog post ~ enjoy!

Age? twenty-one and lovin it!
Bed Size? twin, mostly because I've never lived anywhere that's big enough for anything else =P
Chore that you hate? cleaning the bathroom ::shudder::
Dogs? my dog's an idiot, but at least he's cute. my dogs gotta be cute =)
Essential way to start the day? enough time to wake up slowwwly and look out the window and relish a few moments all to mine-selfs.
Favorite Color? there's at least one shade of each color that I like... but I've yet to find an ugly shade of blue
Gold or Silver? silver goes better with my 'look,' so I'll go with that
Height? 5 '4" ::sigh:: now THIRD tallest of the sibs {some perspective: I'm the oldest}... and even that's not going to last long - the next two are catching up fast.
Instruments you play? kindabutnotreally violin. I suck at it.
Job title? crew member. Im'a NOT telling you where.
Kids? generally cute & crazy, mostly loveable.. and faaar in the future.
Live...? in a house more than twice as big as our old one on three acres with lots of trees and elbow room! and I never want to leave =)
Mother's name? Carrie
Nickname? one lady at work calls me  'ladybug,' but even she doesn't know why. nothing else has ever stuck.
Overnight hospital stays? last year with DKA.
Pet peeves? professors that assign homework like theirs is the only class you're taking that semester, and grossly mispronounced/misspelled words
Quote from a movie? Mal: "This is the captain. We have a little problem with our entry sequence, so we may experience some slight turbulence and then - explode."  ~ Serenity, one of the awesomest and most unappreciated movies out there.
Right or left handed? Right
Siblings? ten {yes, siblings}
Underwear? no comment.
Typed or handwritten? the way I hold a pen/pencil is just horrible and I usually end up cramping it up really bad if I do it for any length of time, so typed if I can. But I still always write my letters by hand.
Vegetables you hate? cooked spinach. most cooked leafy greens, actually.
What makes you late? generally other people. I hate it when someone's late, so I rarely am myself.
Yummy food you make? quiche! my daddy likes my quiche better than even a chef's that he had once =)
Zoo animals? the red panda (which isn't actually a panda) and the penguins.

Apologies for my absence

I'm lost [in the land of academia]... 

 I've gone to look for myself [and poptarts].

so if I get back before I return [and I probably will] - 

please ask me to wait [right here]. 

~ Me

[all pictures compliments of Google]

My bubble

{pic credit}

Still in your bubble today?

But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.

Romans 2:8

Shine - Newsboys

Dull as dirt
You can't assert the kind of light
That might persuade
A strict dictator to retire
Fire the army
Teach the poor origami
The truth is in
The proof is when
You hear your heart start asking,
"What's my motivation?"

And try as you may, there isn't a way
To explain the kind of change
That would make an Eskimo renounce fur
That would make a vegetarian barbecue hamster
Unless you can trace this about-face
To a certain sign...

[Chorus]
Shine
Make 'em wonder what you've got
Make 'em wish that they were not
On the outside looking bored
Shine
Let it shine before all men
Let 'em see good works, and then
Let 'em glorify the Lord

Out of the shaker and onto the plate
It isn't Karma
It sure ain't fate
That would make a Deadhead sell his van
That would make a schizophrenic turn in his crayons
Oprah freaks
And science seeks a rationale
That shall excuse
This strange behavior

When you let it shine
You will inspire
The kind of entire turnaround
That would make a bouncer take ballet
(even bouncers who aren't happy)
But out of the glare
With nowhere to turn
You ain't gonna learn it on "What's My Line?"
[chorus]

Sorry, I couldn't find a decent version of this on Youtube. But you should go find it somewhere and listen to it. Why? 'Cause it's just as awesome as the lyrics are funny. And it's just awesome. Just sayin'.

I like doggies. Hence, you must suffer doggie commercials.

 

So what's rhetoric to do with these? They're funny, and doggone {pun intended} cute. As long as you remember the commercial, you'll remember what it's for, and that is exactly what the people who made them wanted to happen. Coincidence much? Not really.

Hello Summer

{Hello summer}

{hello gloriously empty calendar}

{hello cracking the window at night for a cool breeze}

{hello coloring with crayons just 'cause I can}

{hello sleeping in 'til ten}

{hello subduing the urge to burn my philosophy textbook and selling it to Amazon instead}

{hello capris and flip flops}

{hello reading the the books *I* want to read}

{hello finally having the time to organize my room}

{hello pushing my baby brother in the swing}

{hello (hopefully) twice as many hours at work}

{hello sleepovers and chick flicks}

{hello staying up t'il 2 AM because I want to, not because I have a major paper due tomorrow}

{helloooo, summah!}

[inspiration cred goes to Simply SA and her 'Hello Monday' posts]

Class Assignment: Bumper Stickers

Assignment: Find a large parking lot. Copy down the bumper stickers (vanity plates count too) that you see on the vehicles parked there ~ each of these commonplaces makes an argument and implies an ideologic. Try to figure out the arguments and ideologics that underlie bumper stickers you have seen.

I found a LOT of bumper stickers. Here are a select and [hopefully] varied few.

REDCOAT (vanity plate): This one is definitely making a political statement. Exactly what it is, I'm not entirely sure. Just a proud Brit? We should never have split with the British empire in the first place? All for big government? All of the above?

∑ AΩ : Or in other words [English], Sigma Alpha Omega. Did you know there was a Christian sorority? Neither did I, until I looked these characters up. The first mind picture this conjures up for me is a cross between a Bible thumper and a  party girl. hahaha yeahhh... no. Their slogan is "One in Christ through unity in sisterhood," and after looking up the chapter at NCState I was only slightly more reconciled to the whole idea. Which is... to get together a group of girls from all kinds of Christian backgrounds who (after paying an arm and a leg) do fun things and service projects while still holding true to their biblical values. I'm guessing this person just really, really wanted somewhere to belong, had the money to blow and was therefore willing to pay $210/semester to get together with a group of likeminded girls (and do things that likeminded girls would probably do anyway) under an official title. Draw your own conclusions, but it looks kinda fishy to me.

Fire District #13: Probably the most straightforward (and I know I'm stereotyping here, but that's kinda the point :-P) one here. Firefighter ~ patriotic. Service-oriented. In shape.  Probably conservative. Cute (*winkwink*). Courageous. Selfless. 

Don't Litter ~ Spay and Neuter: Obviously against overpopulation, although they'd probably argue it's only in the case of animals. Pet owner/lover. Probably a member of PETA and/or ASPCA. Liberal.

(Please, feel free to disagree with and voice your disagreement on any or all of these, or just throw in your two cents. I'd love to hear some more sides.)

Rational? ha!

For my first philosophy class, our teacher asked us to read a dialogue between Socrates and a friend of his named Euthyphro. It's a little dry and repetitive at first, but when you get down to the basic premises that it's built on, you get to some interesting questions. Here they are:

Is the pious pious because the gods love it? Or do the gods love it because it's pious?

For my sake and the argument's, for the rest of this post I will be replacing 'gods' with 'God' and 'pious' with 'good.' Now let's get to the good stuff.

       My teacher, after boiling the argument down to these two basic questions, then introduced us to the two concepts of Voluntarism and Rationalism. Voluntarism, when applied to this situation, would essentially agree with the first question and try to convince you that God sprinkles “goodness dust” on anything that makes him happy, therefore making it good. According to this ideology, he could therefore make anything and everything he wanted to good, including suicide bombing, crusading, and any other horrible/inhumane/irrational thing he jolly well pleases. Obviously, everyone knows how ridiculous something like that would be—there are some things that just aren't good, and never will/should be good, right? ...so that gets thrown out the window almost immediately.

       On to Rationalism. This ideology seems the sensible route to most people, because in a way it flatters our already overblown egos. I'll explain. This one goes the way of the second question, arguing that a 'goodness standard' has already been established, and since God is a rational, logical being like us, obviously he judges by that standard just like us. *snort* I've driven on the highway, folks. Don't try to convince me we're a rational race. Besides, our definitions of 'good' and 'rational' have changed and evolved constantly since man started walking this earth. It's a scary thing to think that all of a sudden we have a fixed standard, know it, and think that the One who's calling all the shots is going by that standard as well. That's a heavy duty responsibility that I don't think we're up for.

       So... where does that leave us? Are these our only two options?