Hear me roar

Hoary frost. My window, this morning, was covered with hoary frost.

Granular crust. My eye, my left eye, this morning was covered with granular crust.

Functional literacy. It’s amazing how many college students can’t figure out how to work the printer stations in the computer labs. Someone will swipe his card, wait, swipe it again, wait, start to show signs of agitation, swipe it again, and THEN bother to try to make sense of those four cryptic words printed in plain black ink on the card-reader: “Magnetic Strip This Side”. I’ve watched a lot of students swipe their OneCard four, five times, clearly thinking that there’s something wrong with the stupid machine!! before reading the instructions on how to use it. Man, aren’t we all so smart.

It’s almost as though I’m getting Pink Eye. But I’m not. Maybe I have an in-grown eyelash and a cold. That would explain it. Maybe the cold is in my eye. IN MY EYE!

McDonald’s is hiring. Starting wage: $9/hr. Huh.

Yeah, I guess the economy in Bozeman is strong. A good place to study economics, I suppose.

Speaking of which … eesh. I thought I was only registered for 17 credits in the spring. Not 20/21, as it turns out. I think I’m going to need to drop something.

And, actually, I might drop more than just a class.

For one, I’m thinking about not bringing my car back in the spring. It’s more a hassle than a freedom, really. There’s a good mass transit system in Bozeman these days, and, frankly, I don’t feel that I use my car nearly enough to justify paying to have it insured. Maybe I’ll call State Farm and find out how much I’m going to owe them in January. I need to call them anyway, to make sure that uninsured people can drive my car. Like Quan. And Christina. And Quan. Truth be told, the only reason Quan and I haven’t been in an accident yet is because most of the other drivers on the road are good drivers. Thank god, because Quan’s not. Remotely.

Picture Thursday night: it’s late, and time to go to Pita Pit*. Quan wants to drive; I let him– it should be an easy drive (aside from crossing Wilson St, which is always busy). Stop sign at Wilson; it’s clear both ways. I tell Quan to go, and we start out into the intersection. Then: he panics. There’s a car coming up on the right! We have plenty of time, as long as we keep going. But when Quan panics, he freezes. So, suddenly, we’re at a dead-stop, diagonally, in the middle of the intersection. There’s a car coming up on the right. Rather quickly now. And a car coming up quick on the left, over the hill. And a car straight across from us; we can’t go straight. And we’re just sitting there, at a dead-halt, screaming “Quan! Go!!“

Fortunately, the oncoming cars from both directions saw us (apparently stalled) and they slowed, allowing us enough time to coax Quan into the right line and over to the side of the road. Then there was a Chinese fire drill. As you can imagine. It’s an act that we’ve nearly mastered.

But I digress. I may not bring back my car, but that’s assuming that I don’t get evicted from living on campus. Which is kinda a concern at the moment, as I’ve been recommended for eviction. It’s kinda an odd situation. It’s another one of those “you ran a stop-sign on your bike and now you must pay $1,000,000 and go to prison!” situations. Ask me about it some time.

If I don’t bring back my car, I may not work on campus. I have the luxury of not needing to work. I want to be more involved on campus, in senate, with recycling club, etc. All that takes time. I want to have time for recreation as well. The obvious thing to cut is the number of hours that I work. But if I’m going to cut my hours from 20-25 a week to 10-15 a week, it gets to the point where I wonder if it’s even worth hassle, ya know? I’ve been a less-than-reliable worker as of late, and I really couldn’t be bothered to care.

(*-I never got my pita from the Saturday night previous, which is another story unto itself.)