Today, I'm weary and tired.

Have you ever found yourself suddenly, unexpectedly anxious? Every once in a while I will be overwhelmed by panic, as if the walls are closing in and I can feel my heart trying to escape my chest, and then as soon as it began, it's gone. It is exhausting.

Quiz Mastery.

My brother and I are currently embroiled in a sporcle war (taking a re-fueling break at the moment) and I just whooped his tush in the quiz "can you name the countries of Europe?" The quiz gives 8 minutes to name the 47 European nations, including micro nations. He scored 29/47 by the time it ran out. I got all of them with 4:46 minutes left to spare- boo ya!

Now for more quiz-sparring. Huzzah!

Deja Vu.

Today was spent researching colleges. Again. I've now done this just about ever few months for the last four months. At this point, I truly feel like I've become a professional college researcher. Maybe I should skip college all together and just become a college finder for others... Fingers crossed, this will be the last time I have to search for a school to get an undergraduate degree though. This is just getting ridiculous.

Just in Time.

I have a strange affinity for completing assignments within minutes of them being due. In high school, I used to refer to my Advanced Placement classes as an education in Advanced Procrastination. Last semester I didn't begin my term papers or final projects until the day I had to hand them in. I can't tell you why I'm such a terrible procrastinator, but for some reason it seems to work for me. One of these days this habit will bite me in the ass, but until then, I'm going to keep testing the limits. Tonight, I began an assignment at 11:03PM, knowing it was due at midnight. I've known about it for well over a week, and it's for my international business class which I really do enjoy. Seeing as it was the first homework assignment, most people would try to give themselves the most possible time so they made a good impression. Obviously, I'm not most people... I waited as long as possible, knowing that this professor expects highly detailed responses from his students. I answered the questions as quickly (though effectively) as possible, and was able to submit the properly spaced, spell-checked assignment at 11:57. Now, I don't wish to boast about what I perceive to be a major win, but I'd just like to say one thing: Fuck yeah! That is a new personal record considering the length and quality of the work. I just love to race against the clock like that. I know it's foolish and I'm bound to loose to father time, but for the moment, I have to bask in the glory of success. It really is the small things in life...

Merci Beacoup.

I'm sorry I've been absent the last two days. I was suddenly hit with an onslaught of homework and other things to occupy my time. I will keep up with this to the best of my ability, and hopefully with more interesting posts. Thanks for hanging in there.

Simply Said.

Tired. Cold. Must sleep. Tomorrow will bring more adventures.

Birds of a Feather.

Today I woke up to a lovely, yet insufficient-to-cancel-my-class dusting of snow. When I arrived, we were given a basic run through of what the class would entail. The instructor seems very nice and I believe we'll have a good semester. Since it's a social psychology class, we'll be doing a fair amount of social activities within the class and as projects. The first of them was an ice-breaker which involved these loud rubber chickens that squawk. The object of the game was to learn each others names through repeatedly tossing these chickens both forward and backwards around the circle, proving the name "flipping the bird" rather appropriate (the alternate name is "Choking the chicken", of course). It wasn't a terribly useful game, but I did learn one thing: I can not throw. I hit one of my classmates in the head four times. Whoops.

Yes, this was the highlight of my day. No, I'm not proud.

On another avian-related note: If people who are in in love are called "Love Birds", shouldn't couples who fight be called "Angry Birds?" Bahaha.

No, I'm not particularly proud of that either.

Homework Time.

I did my first homework assignment of the new semester this afternoon, and it actually feels kind of good. I'm only taking four online classes this semester, as opposed to six last time, so I'm going to hold myself to higher standards as far as keeping myself on track with handing in assignments and such. Tomorrow we're in for our first decent snow of the winter (about 4-7 inches in total) so this may mean my once-a-month class will be cancelled. Whoops. I guess mother nature would prefer I use my talents to shovel rather than studying tomorrow. Seems like a good plan to me (assuming I don't have to wake up at the ass-crack of dawn to find out).

Censorship in America.

Since all of my readers are in Europe, I don't know how many of you have heard of this hot-topic. Tomorrow the U.S. government is set to decide whether or not to pass the SOPA and PIPA acts. In short, these acts were proposed to protect anyone who creates anything from copy write infringement. While I applaud the idea that individual's content should be protected, there is a major problem with the way the government plan on going about it. Anyone who dares to use an image or something they found on the internet may be reported to authorities, and if someone has ten strikes in a period of six months, they can risk a prison sentence of up to five years. Now, I've always tried to cite images and information, but who hasn't grabbed the first Google search result they could find to use in a project or presentation? Even blogs and small business websites may be subject to these laws, making it more difficult to share ideas and contribute on a larger scale. Of course I've signed the petitions against it and written my representatives as asked. I've even tried to raise awareness of this using social media as many are doing today, but I'm a bit concerned about how much impact any of this will really have. This is all a very scary concept for someone who was brought up to believe the government couldn't impose their will on private lives for the sake of it. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but this whole situation has a distinct "Big Brother is Watching" undertone to it which is a little difficult to grasp. I'm not hard-pressed to imagine that if these bills do in fact pass, it will only be the beginning of real censorship in America unlike anything we've ever seen.

London Love.

I've been watching the Travel channel sporadically throughout the day, because as anyone who knows me knows, I have a serious case of wander lust. I want to see and do everything I can. There is literally a list tucked safely in my email inbox that is chock-full of all the adventures I've planned. Barely a country will be unvisited if I get my way- see the northern lights in Iceland, experience Holi in India, go zorbing through New Zealand, fly fish in Mongolia...I want to do it all. To do this, I will have to begin now, which is why I'm trying to plan a visit to London before this years Olympic games cause the cost of plane fare to skyrocket. This should be a bit of a challenge, but there's no time like the present to begin my adventures, so I'm excited. I don't have a specifically ordered list of which countries I will visit, though I know I'd love England to be the first. I'm an unapologetic anglophile in almost every sense of the word (mock me if you must, but I enjoy every second of it), and can't wait to see London in person. The furthest I've ever been is New Hampshire, and I've yet to see an airport, let alone sit on a plane, so if I could make a trip abroad happen this year, that would absolutely be a welcome change of pace. Especially to London.