Games, Games and More Games!
I went to a little Game Night at a friend of a friend's house. Her name is Lisa and I first met her through Dave when she came to Meghan, Annie and me's April party. Matt G and Andrew also know her. Anyway, she had stopped by the Service Desk while I was in the bathroom to invite Matt (and Annie) and Andrew to her house to play cards. Matt told me he wasn't going but asked if I wanted to and gave me Lisa's number to call her and ask if it was okay. Which is what I did when I got home from work.

I got to Lisa's around 8 or so. The people there (Pauline, Ben, and Brian) were finishing up dinner. Then we went upstairs to play cards. First we played King's Corner which is like multi-player solitare. Then my RA from freshman year who lived in the same apartment complex came over. Then we played Egyptian Rat Slap. We then played Gumpsh. It's where you try to get four of a kind and then signal to your partner that you have it and get them to call Gumpsh on you. Fun game, I kind of remembered it from the one time I played with Jenny, Shannon and Sari in 6th grade. By the time the game was over it was around 10:30 or so, I think. Neva had to go but then Andrew showed up. Lisa taught us all a new game, Maow. It's where the Gamemaster (Lisa in this case) dealt cards and you went around the circle putting down a card and the Gamemaster told you when you were breaking a rule. So basically, through observation and trial and error, you have to figure out the rules of the game. The object of the game is to get rid of all your cards. If you do then you become Gamemaster for the next game and get to add another rule.

For my reference, the basic rules are:
-written somewhere else. So ha!

After the first game of Maow, Ben, Brian and Pauline had to go. It was close to 12 at that time. Andrew and I stayed and we played some more Maow, until we had added 5 new rules. It was around 1:30 then. But we wanted to play some more. I had brought Taboo and Hoopla with me. We then played two games of Hoopla. After that, it was about 2:45 and I decided to head home.

I had a really really fun night. I'm glad Matt invited me and that Lisa said it was okay =)

Recent Events
Went home for the weekend for doctor appointments and such for the most part. It was pretty good. My mom said that it looked like I had lost 10 pounds but when I went to the doctor, we found out that I had gained 4 pounds since my last visit in late March. Whoops. I got the standard I need to change my eating habits lecture from my dad before that though. I got another lecture/concern talk from my mom hit a wall of reality recently when one of her friends was diagnosed with cancer. She wants to know that I'll be alright if something happens to her. Blah blah, it was basically the same thing I've heard numerous times from both parents before. At least she kept up the tradition of giving me the emotional health talk on the last day of break ;-P.

Some of the more happier highlights of the weekend: saw 4.5 movies: Freaky Friday (really good, highly recommend), Uptown Girls (ugh, we overpaid for that one. Granted the tape was bad but I don't think a better copy would have helped), Out of Time (good suspense film. recommend seeing it once it comes out in theaters), and the .5 film was Bowling for Columbine.

Oddly, what I did Saturday is kind of escaping me. I know that at night I watched TV while working on my quilt. I have the second sheet done, now I need to sew them together.

I saw Freaky Friday with my mom and her friend Rema and her daughter Marisa on Sunday. We then went out to lunch and my mom and I went into this new (to me) store in the mall called Passion for Fashion. They had some cute stuff in there. I got these classy looking black pants that had a built in scarf around the waist and a nice top to go with them. Then Ashley came over. I was watching Bloodwork on TV when she came over so we watched the end of that, ate some pizza, talked about the bad old high school days (particularly how much the English classes suck), and watched half of Bowling for Columbine. About half way through she called her parents and asked to stay later. They said to be home in 15 minutes so we had to raincheck the rest of the movie.

I saw Uptown Girls and Out of Time with my parents on Monday night. During the day I worked on the DVDs. All I left is pulling Jessica's scenes from about 5 productions, and my parents childhood. Those will be fun to watch. Tuesday was two doctor appointments and celebrating my parents 32nd anniversary. I wore my new outfit to the resturant, and if I may say, I looked good.

Wednesday was another doctor's appointment. I also went to a couple Barnes and Noble that were sorta on the way home to see if they had any of my favorite authors' new books (they didn't). Came home and had lunch with my mom and then we went to pick up my car (it had gone to the mechanic on Tuesday to get an oil change and to get my trunk fixed). Then we played Scrabble (Mom kicked my ass). Dad got home relatively early so I could have dinner with them and then I picked up Randy and came back to SLO.

Today I worked from 8-5. I did go to Farmer's tonight. I saw quite a few people I knew while there: Joel from work, Matt's cousin Leigh, Justin and Amy, David and Jessica. I hung out with Jessica and her friend from work for quite a bit. We had dinner together and walked around until a little before 8 whereupon I split and went into Barnes and Noble to see if they had any of the new books. They didn't but I spent some time looking for new authors. I came out with 3 books after stopping to talk to Leigh for awhile. I went over to Staples to see if I could get the expandable shelves that I saw the last time I was there but I got there at 9:01 and they closed at 9. Figures.

Things I hope to accomplish tomorrow:
-catch up on my sit-ups
-drop off my perscription
-buythe shelves
-finish uploading the rest of my pictures to http://briefcase.yahoo.com/mathymandy@sbcglobal.net
-set up and put things on said shelves
-finish Hot Dog which I plan on starting tonight
*EDIT* -Figure out how to use a non-already-blank tape on my answering machine
-Cancel my voicemail

Political Phone Poll
I actually didn't hang up on the guy. I acutally sat there and answered the questions. In a way, it was informative. I learned what some of the city issues are. For example, fixing the storm drains to prevent local creeks from floods and revamping the police department. I wasn't opposed to the police department revamping (wasn't entirely for it either) but I am slightly opposed to the flood protection. I think there was only one day of heavy rain this past school year, and I remember that because the Valencia car port flooded, but that was Valencia's fault, not the city's.

I did find it funny when the guy asked about if I would be more or somewhat more inclined to vote on a meausre if it had an Ojectionable Bond or something as well and I asked him what that was. He said he had no idea so I told them that I had no idea. It was also funny when he was reading off the income level and he told me to tell him when to stop: [him] "$30,000 and under..$... [me]under!

But yeah, for about 10 minutes of my time (which also helped me put off studying sociology ]=) ), I got some idea of city issues. Granted I don't permanently live here but I am currently a voting citizen and I kind of felt like one tonight.

How somewhat depressing. I'm just starting to finish summer school and some people are going back for new year this week. Like USC. So much for any attempts to hang out with those people this weekend. I should e-mail Vanessa and see if she's back already.

Surprises
So last night, between my corn on the cob and my hamburger, I decided to make cookies. Then while I was letting the first batch cool (but after I ate my dinner) and watching Buffy, I heard a knock on the door. I open it up to find Annie standing out there. I was very surprised and happy to see her. She had come to pay me back. I offered her some of my cookies and then she invited me to go to Farmer's Market. I gladly agreed. I went upstairs to get purse and jacket and things but I had left Buffy on downstairs and Annie got into it. We stayed until the epidsode ended. Then she drove us back to her place. Well, she started to at least. She unfortunately ran out of gas 3/4 of the way there. We walked the rest of the way and she bought lemonade from some kids.

So we got back to her place but only to find Matt there. Annie called two Murray apartments but no one was home. A few minutes later Steve, Dave, Sun, Travis and Lisa walked up. We hung out there for a while: Travis and Annie playing video games, Matt studying for Physics, Steve helping Matt, and the rest of us playing with the cats.

After a bit, Lisa and Sun wanted to go to Farmer's. I wanted to join them and then we all sans Matt went. We walked around Farmer's a bit. I contemplated buying grapes but decided against it.

We then went to this Japanese resturant at about 8:30. I had half a side of rice. Although Sun tried to get me to have a California roll. It took me a while to convice her that I really wasn't hungry and was only having the rice to have something to do, and that I really didn't want to try it. She also said that the wasabi(sp?) tasted like sugar but I knew better. Anyway, a couple of funny lines from dinner below. There were more I just can't remember them.

[Lisa to Dave who had a Wells Fargo card in his mouth] Are you an ATM machine now?
[Sun] You're more useful now!

[someone says something about the fish eggs]
[Dave] I'm so full I have no womb.

After dinner we went back to Matt and Annie's. However it was nearly 10 and I was tired so I was going to head home. Plus I knew what would have happened had I stayed: I would have gotten absorbed into the video game world until it was nearly midnight, get home around 12:30 and finally fall asleep closer to 1:30 when I had to be at work at 8. I chose to not be grumpy this morning and was planning to walk home but Travis was nice enough to give me a ride back.

So that was my surprise for the evening. It was quite nice, being around other people off campus is good, I enjoyed it muchly.

Psychology
My professor was nice enough to post our standing right now but minus our extra credit (which is the only thing I don't know, but whatever). I take pleasure in the fact that I have the fourth highest grade going into the final =). Although I feel kinda sorry for one person. They currently have a 23%. Ouch. Either they got every question wrong on the second midterm or they didn't show, either way they got a zero for it.

But yeah, felt like bragging. Cause *sings* it's my blog and I'll write what I want to, write what I want */sings* (burnt cookie for whoever gets that)

Fall 03
I registered for classes today. I got all the classes I wanted. Which means that I snagged the last spot in Combinatorial Math, go me! So the classes are:

Math 304 Vector Analysis 10:10-11am MTRF
Math 306 Linear Algebra II 1:10-2pm MTRF
Math 336 Combinatorial Math 2:10-3pm MTRF
Math 370 Putnam Exam Seminar 4:10-5pm MW

Lots of Math next quarter, but I'm ready for it (well, I will be once I get this Liberal Arts crap out of me). And hopefully those classes will give me so much needed direction. I don't have my work schedule yet but I know that I won't be working W 2-4pm because of Hawthorne and R 11:10-12 for Math Club meetings.

*sigh*
I picked up my grade for my Sociology test. A D fucking minus prior to adjustment. A plain old D with it. I honestly thought I did better on this one. I'm also hoping very much that I remembered my test number incorrectly and was looking at someone else's scores. I have no idea of how to prepare for this guy. His lectures, when I'm awake, are just mainly statisitics. There have only been about 4 days of real lecture I would say. The book is boring as fucking hell. I don't retain any of the information when I try to read it because it either puts me to sleep while I'm trying to read it or I'm doing some activity (like working out at the gym) in which case it's difficult to read in the first place.

Perhaps I just shouldn't bother with the book except for those focus on the country thingies. Maybe just attempt to pay attention to "lecture," and memorize the handouts. I wanted an A to boost my GPA back up, but even if I completely ace everything I'll only get a B. Hopefully fall will be less boring. I'll be back to math so that's alreay a plus.

Head Fucking Part 2
I re-watched Terminator tonight. As you may recall, the whole Terminator series fucks with my head and I don't like it. But tonight I noticed a major flaw with T2 and T3, which thus makes it fuck with my head some more.

In T1, Kyle tells Dr. Silverman that it wouldn't help the machines to kill John Connor at the point when he went back in time because the human resistance had smashed something causing the humans to win. He then says that that's when they found the "time displacement" machine and the Terminator had already gone through. He also says that the time displacement machine was destroyed after he went through. I'll come back to the "what if it wasn't, he has no proof of that" angle later.

So then at that time, the human resistance didn't have their own Terminator 101 (the one that is sent back in T2) because, to me, that would be a better choice to send back as a protector (hard to kill). But also at that time, the machines must not have had the T1000 or the TX because those are much better killing machines and would have been better choices to send for the first film. So then, how did the machines send back more advanced machines after the time machine was destroyed? Or, going back to the "the time machine wasn't destroyed for some reason" angle, then how could more advanced Terminators been built if the humans had defeated the machines?

Interestingly, the DVD featured some deleted scenes which contributed to the plot. One whole scene they cut out was Sarah calling her mom and telling her mom to hide in the cabin (referred to later by the Terminator as the mom on the phone with Sarah) and then looking through the phone book. Sarah tears out the page that contains the address for Cyberdine, the company responsible for it all. She then convinces Kyle that they should try to destroy the company. In the audio commentary, James Cameron says it ended up being a good thing that they cut that since that was the "nucleus" for the second movie. Anyway, some more deleted stuff was a guy who worked at the factory where the Terminator was destroyed picking up the CPU and handing it to another guy and telling him to get it to analysis or whatever the next day but they hide the chip from the police who told them not to touch anything. Outside, we see Sarah loaded into a ambulance and then the camera pans up to the name of the factory?Cyberdine Systems. Just another case of the Terminator series demonstrating how knowledge of the future causes the events in the present making that future.

I really ought to stop over analyzing things.

Back to plan A
Despite some people telling me that a certain teacher is bad and smells, I have to take 306 this quarter. Putting it off another quarter just fucks me up even more. How you ask? Because it forces me to take 481 and 412 at the same time the following fall. This way I can at least split those up. But basically, if I put 306 off for another quarter, I put off the upper-division proofs course needed as a "strongly recommended" prereq for like 3 other courses. So I won't be taking Stat 425 this quarter. I'll put that off for a bit. Plus, apparently that course is also proof based so I guess having 306 first would help.