non-organic un-fair trade

i'm sorry, non-organic, un-fair trade coffee just tastes better.

there are more, but these are the worst

can't say this has been a great week. dog ran away, car ran out of gas on the freeway, and then i tried to ride a bike after twenty years of not doing so (see pictures for results of that brilliant idea). i'm hoping this next week is better.

houdini hayden

so i had a bunch of funny things to blog about but they were overshadowed by the events of this evening. really, i've been recording funny things into my digital recorder so i wouldn't forget them but i'm dogsitting and i came over this evening after class, let the dogs out to do their business, and by 'business,' i don't mean a legally recognized organization designed to provide goods or services, or both, to consumers, and approximately three minutes later, opened the door to let them back in. in came in tyson, good boy. and hayden? nowhere to be seen. to make a long story short, mainly because i'm tired, and it's just too emotionally draining to re-live the walking, calling, driving, crying, and talking to neighbors, the little stinker knows how to escape from the front yard, did so, and ran around the neighborhood until a very nice neighbor saw him and took him inside where her very nice daughter gave him a peanut butter doggie treat. i was in the driving-crying-on the phone with my sister-phase of the search and rescue process when the very nice neighbor saw me and asked if i was looking for a little yorkie.

so now i'm back and can begin working on homework (after i check facebook and finish this blog post, duh). hayden is on my grumpy face list but he's trying hard to win me back. he'll succeed in about two minutes, but grrrr, all i could think about was him getting hit by a car and it was getting dark and i couldn't find him and it was all horrible. he is only conducting business in the back yard from now on.

robots in disguise

optimus prime and poptimus prime.
optimus prime and his autobots fight the evil forces of the decepticons while poptimus prime simply scares them away with his psychotic glare and threat of suffocation.
whatever works.

fall 2010 classes

sociology 362: statistics for sociologists iii. a class all about regression; linear, logistic, simple, multiple. lots of work and three stupid days a week. seriously, the associate dean of the department teaches the class, he couldn't have made the lab on one of the discussion days? ugh.

sociology 752: measurement and questionnaires for survey research. a fantastic class that will also be a lot of work but i'm very excited about. the instructor is the director of the uw survey center, very intelligent, and super organized.

pop health 803: monitoring population health. i'm also excited about this class which deals with public health surveillance systems.

french 1: conversational french. bonjour! i'm learning french so i can get a job with an international organization. it's practical and fun!

despite liking three of my four classes, i hate my schedule. stupid soc 362 is three afternoons a week, french is tuesday evenings until 7:30, survey research begins the next morning at 8:00 with the monitoring pop health class ending at 6:10 on the same day (wednesdays are going to be the longest days ever). in addition, i still have my 50% assistantship which means i have to fit 20 hours of work into each week. that wouldn't be a problem except that i work off campus and i could, potentially, spend all of my non-class time doing homework.

this weekend was my first with homework and i was a terrible student. i read about a 16th of what i needed to and didn't write anything. gotta work on that.

today i have class from 3:30 to 5:25. which class, you might wonder? stupid soc 362. but then i'm picking up a costco pizza and heading over to hang out with flav and the kids so the evening won't be totally ruined.

i'd just like to point out that i don't actually dislike the regression class. i dislike that it's three days a week and that there are six exams. none of my other classes have exams. but regression? six!! the other classes meet one day a week. but regression? three!! stupid soc 362.

year two

classes start today. i prepared by forgetting that classes started today and then remembering and then realizing i had lost the envelope with this year's parking pass in it. i finally found the envelope as well as my student id which i had forgotten i would need. i'm also borrowing a pen from work because, well, i forgot to throw one in my bag.

i'm taking four classes this semester: survey methodology, monitoring population health, regression, and french. i can't really say i'm excited about classes although i did choose three of the four that i'm taking. just feeling a little dis-enchanted with school given my failure with the qualifying exam. maybe i'll be more excited once classes get going.

and so begins year two.