Nihil Novi

nihilnovi @ 2006-05-20T02:02:00

2006-05-20T07:03:23Z

I should go to bed, but first I'd better post - it's been awhile.

I graduated today, but it hasn't really hit me yet. I'm sure it will in August, when instead of starting classes in St. Louis I'll be starting classes in Colorado. And it'll hit me when I move into my new place, whatever that might be. But really, it hasn't quite dawned on me that I've graduated. I mean, I obviously know that I've graduated, but I guess I subconsciously expected something to be different...but it's not. Maybe part of why I'm so confused is because I'm leaving for Spain on Monday, without going home first. I have been so busy preparing for Spain, and packing, and spending time with people that I guess I haven't stopped to think that I am done. I am done, and I don't like that. I'm not ready to leave St. Louis, my friends, my professors, and even the Cardinals. I want to keep playing in my brass quintet, the Wash U orchestra, and mariachi for the rest of my life - I'm not ready to stop, but I guess I have no choice. Well, I did have a choice (sort of) and I chose to leave St. Louis. But I'm not ready!!!

I probably won't post again before I leave for Spain on Monday. mijra and I will be posting to camino2006, so check it out! I'll be returning July 1.

Colorado, here I come!

2006-03-29T02:00:47Z

I know it has been a long time since my last post, but to be honest, I've been lazy and haven't had much to say. But now I do.

It is official: I am going to be at Colorado State University next fall, working towards a Ph.D. in industrial/organizational psychology!

I visited CSU during spring break, and I absolutely loved it. I loved the grad students, I loved the professors, I loved how the program is designed, and I love the location! CSU is in Fort Collins, just a ten-minute drive from the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. I have always wanted to live in the mountains, and Colorado is my favorite state, so I am very excited! I am a very, very happy person right now, but I am also very sad about leaving St. Louis. I will miss my friends, my music groups (especially mariachi and brass quintet), and the Cardinals. I'm on the verge of crying just thinking about it - St. Louis is my life, and I will be leaving it. It is going to be very hard starting over, making new friends, finding new music groups, starting a totally new life. But I am ready.

My thesis is complete!!

2006-03-10T05:10:39Z

I just email my advisor and the head of honors my complete thesis.

Whew, now to get to my other homework and pack for tomorrow!

stupid thesis

2006-03-09T10:24:14Z

I should not still be awake working on my thesis.

It's due at midnight - this will be a long day. I have class in 4.5 hours, too...

nihilnovi @ 2006-03-05T03:15:00

2006-03-05T09:16:19Z

Ooh, another exciting email:

Cum 11ke a firework with Sperm@max.
Inund@te your neighbors with the amount of your sperm with Spermamax.
With Spermamax you will need the whole towel instead of napkin to wipe off the results of your orgasm.

Carmen!

2006-03-03T16:11:37Z

Today looks like it will be a very, very good day.

The opera Carmen is coming to St. Louis just this Sunday, as it will performed by the Teatro Lirico d'Europa, who is passing through for just one day. I found out about it a long time ago, but I couldn't afford to go - the cheapest tickets are $35. I have always been obsessed with the music from Carmen, and I have played it in the orchestra here, but I've never seen the show.

This morning, as I was sitting at my computer listening to the classical station and putting off taking my shower and doing work, they announced that you could call in to win tickets to Carmen.

So I called in, and won!!! I'm going to Carmen!!!

Make the bed soaking wet with t

2006-03-01T04:10:33Z

I received this email in my inbox today:

Be cool even when cuming, be with Spermamax.
Spermamax can get pregnant even a man.
Make the bed soaking wet with t

All I can say is...wow. I get these kinds of emails multiple times a day, too.

Grad school

2006-02-22T20:47:48Z

Update:

Colorado State: accepted
UMSL: accepted
Central Michigan: accepted
Portland State: in the final applicant pool
Purdue: waitlisted
Minnesota: rejected
Rice, Illinois: waiting...

On a not-such-a-happy note, my 120 GB hard drive failed over the weekend and now everything I hadn't backed up is gone...which is a lot. *sigh*

nihilnovi @ 2006-02-17T14:45:00

2006-02-17T20:46:26Z

<td align="center"> nihilnovi --
[noun]:

A person of questionable sanity who starts their own cult

'How will you be defined in the dictionary?' at QuizGalaxy.com</td>

grad school update

2006-02-16T13:39:36Z

Current grad school application status:

Colorado State - accepted
Portland State - in the final pool of applicants
Purdue - waitlisted
Minnesota - rejected
Illinois, Rice, Central Michigan, UMSL - ?

I don't think I'll get into Illinois, I don't think Rice is accepting grad students this year, and I'd go to Colorado State over UMSL and Central Michigan. I'd probably take CSU over PSU also, so it looks like I might be going to Colorado State!

nihilnovi @ 2006-02-11T05:27:00

2006-02-11T11:29:02Z

As I was riding the shuttle on the way home from the med school today, I received a phone call. It was Dr. Zinta Byrne, from Colorado State, informing me that I have been accepted into their I/O program! I am thrilled. Although they are not my first choice by any means, they are a good option and I now know that I won't be homeless next year. :o)

On another happy note, I went to my first opera tonight (La Boheme) and friends came over afterwards for much merriment.

It was a good day. Now, at 5:30 a.m., I should go to bed.

identity meme

2006-02-10T19:30:36Z

You guys probably know what this is by now, so...

http://kevan.org/johari?name=nihilnovi

1 down, 7 to go

2006-02-07T03:21:03Z

Heard from Purdue - I'm waitlisted. Not really sure what that means. I wish I knew how many people are on the waitlist.

I was really hoping to get into Purdue, but at least I haven't been rejected.

Camino!!!!!!!

2006-02-02T06:02:56Z

It's official - mijra and I are going to Spain. We have both bought our plane tickets.

nihilnovi @ 2006-01-27T13:30:00

2006-01-27T19:29:53Z

Ok, so this is getting creepy. I just saw Pascal again.

nihilnovi @ 2006-01-27T01:10:00

2006-01-27T07:10:51Z

Every time I watch a movie, I see some sort of romance/attraction between characters, and it always reminds me of how lonely I am.

Sheesh.

nihilnovi @ 2006-01-26T12:48:00

2006-01-26T18:49:31Z

Ok, this is bizarre. I just ran into Pascal again. After not having seen him since April, I see him twice in two days!

Today I had class from 9-10, and I've been running subjects since 10:15. I will continue to run them non-stop until 6:15.

Ugh.

nihilnovi @ 2006-01-25T13:29:00

2006-01-25T19:39:39Z

I'm currently sitting in the psych lab, running subjects. I had run 90 subjects for my thesis during all of November and the first part of December, and it was incredibly difficult to get the subjects. I needed about 20 more subjects, so I decided I'd run subjects this week and see if I could get 20. So far, I've run 21 subjects since Friday, and I have 25 more signed up so far for the rest of the week! It looks like I'll actually be able to start my data analysis soon, which is great considering the draft of the entire thesis is due in a little over a month...

Right now, life is good. My car is still not fixed (it'll take about a week and a half) and I still don't know how it'll turn out with the insurance companies, but right now I'm really enjoying my life. I love my Spanish class, and my professor for Leadership is actually an I/O psychologist!! That's really exciting to me, because now I have an I/O psychologist from whom I can get grad school advice. My Argentine Tango class is amazing - though I'm a little confused with the last step we learned - and my partner, Justice, is awesome. Justice came over for four hours last night after tango class and hung out with me and my apartmentmates. I really had thought it'd been about two hours max, until I looked at my watch when he left!

Other exciting stuff - today I sent off my supplemental materials for my very last grad school application. I applied to eight schools, so hopefully one will want me. Now for the fun part...waiting.

Other very exciting news (to me): I had my first guitar lesson today! Learning guitar will be fun, and I've always wanted to learn. It's sad when I can buy a guitar for 2/3 of what it cost me to buy my Spanish book. Also, I really, really like my teacher. He's incredibly nice, patient, young, and I can see myself getting a crush on him. Haha. Speaking of crushes on inappropriate people, I ran into Pascal (my professor from second semester last year) when leaving the psych building today! I had not seen him since last April. We talked about my thesis and his new baby (I brought up the topic), and then he asked me if I was still playing trumpet! This coming from the professor who couldn't remember to go to his own class, so he asked us to email him to remind him to come to class! I had mentioned once that I played trumpet, and somehow he remembered that. Odd. Anyway, it completely made my day to see him.

Also exciting: I've lost 5 pounds in the last two weeks! It's a good start, but I have a bunch more to lose before I'm ready to walk across Spain.

Oh, and I should mention that Rebecca E was dumb enough to snort half an altoid last night, and then jumped up screaming in pain. I told her she shouldn't do it. Hehe. I actually got a video of it, so it can be watched over, and over, and over... I feel bad for her though; she did look like she was in a lot of pain. But I must admit, it was funny!

So in summary: People are good. Music is good. Life is good.

Days left...

2006-01-22T18:29:01Z

Ths is kind of dumb and kind of cool at the same time.

accident

2006-01-19T18:41:17Z

Yesterday I was in a car accident at the intersection of Big Bend and Forsyth.

Luckily no one was hurt, my car is still driveable, and the accident was 100% the other guy's fault. mijra and I were going north on Big Bend, heading home. The other driver, another Wash U student, was headed south on Big Bend but was turning left onto Forsyth. I had a green light - it had been green for awhile - so I continued to drive straight. The other driver apparently didn't see me and turned right in front of me, despite the fact that he did not have a green arrow, only a green yield. I slammed on my brakes as soon as I saw him, but there was not enough time to stop because I was going about 30 and the intersection is at the top of a hill with poor visibility. We collided - my front, right side and his right, front side. Luckily my car fared much better than his; mine is driveable, his was pretty crunched and leaking some sort of fluid (probably antifreeze). Somehow my paper-thin, light-weight, wimp of a car managed to do more damage than his 2002 Saturn.

If you are interested,

are pictures of my car.

This morning I went to get an estimate on the damages, and at first it came up that the car was totaled. BAD news, especially because my car was in perfect condition with only 70,000 miles. However, the woman at the auto body place changed some numbers and managed to make it so that my car was not totalled. My car is apparently only worth about $3600 or so, and the damages are over $2100 and will take over a week to repair.

Damn.

My poor baby... I am the person who washes my car every two weeks by hand, often more frequently if it has rained or if a bird crapped on my car, I am the one who parks far, far away so that my car won't get dings, I am the one who parks parallel whenever possible at school so that stupid people won't open their doors into me. Yeah, and I'm the one who gets hit. At least this way I'll either get a painted or new hood (mine has a couple deep scratches that magically appeared last year).

I can see!!!!

2006-01-15T02:42:34Z

I am back in good ol' St. Louis. The past few days have been extremely eventful - worth writing about! On Thursday, I had LASIK surgery. My eyes were really bad, and I'd become allergic to my contacts for the last year. I could wear them still, but I had a lot of problems and had to use special (and more expensive) solution. It sucked. I couldn't carry that much solution on the camino (I had to use a lot of the new stuff - far more than regular contact solution), and I'd always wanted to have LASIK. This was the ideal time.

The surgery went really well. One eye bled a tiny bit, according to my mom (who was allowed to watch the surgery). It was very strange - they clamped/suctioned my eye in place, and had some device to keep my lids open, though I couldn't see what it was. I just know that it hurt a little bit. The surgery was over within minutes. I left about five minutes afterwards, slightly off-kilter from valium, and already seeing a bit better. The instructions were to go home and sleep for a few hours to let the eyes begin to heal. HA. I wish I could have slept. The first hour was ok; there was no real pain because the numbing drops used for the surgery were still having an effect. However, after about an hour, the burning began. People are only supposed to have mild irritation, similar to if one slept with contacts in, but that was not the case with me. My eyes burned, and I'm no wimp to pain - I've torn a rotator cuff and torn my meniscus in the last two years, so I'm used to pain. But this burning was awful. It lasted about an hour and a half, and the whole time my eyes watered so much that tears were streaming down my face. However, eventually most of the pain stopped and I was able to fall asleep.

It has now been about 52 hours since my surgery. I went back to the doctor's office yesterday for a checkup, and the news was great - I'm seeing 20/20 in one eye, 20/15 in the other, and it is likely that my eyesight will improve even more in the next few days. However, my right eye is a bit hazy. It's hard to explain; it looks kind of like things look when you sleep with a contact in and everything has a strange off-ness to it. Apparently that's normal, though, and should go away soon. The doctor said my eyes looked as good as they could possibly look 24 hours after surgery (which is when I went in). Overall, I'm extremely happy with the surgery. It boggles my mind to think that I no longer need glasses or contacts - I have been reliant on glasses since the summer after first grade, and I have worn contacts since sixth grade. It doesn't hit me much in the day - I still feel like I must have contacts in. But when I am falling asleep, or just waking up, or in the shower, and I can see, it completely throws me off. I love it!!

nihilnovi @ 2006-01-02T03:19:00

2006-01-02T09:20:08Z

It's currently 40 degrees warmer in St. Louis than here. Here it's snowing; in St. Louis there's a tornado watch.

Go figure.

Black Hawk Down

2005-12-31T19:46:23Z

Did I lend anyone my DVD of Black Hawk Down (in its case)? I'm pretty certain I didn't, but I can't find it anywhere, and it should be with my DVDs.

movies

2005-12-31T05:58:10Z

Today I went to see King Kong with my family (our yearly trip to the theatre), and I was surprised by how much I liked it! It was really an excellent movie.

Now to read some more of Zorro, by Isabel Allende. Truly excellent book so far - but even if it were poorly written I'd still like it, because Zorro has been my hero since early grade school.

And people wonder where I get my love for sword-fighting and Spanish men...

nihilnovi @ 2005-12-28T19:44:00

2005-12-29T01:44:36Z

I have now submitted three grad school applications. YES!