Highly Atypical

So I biked to the local Target this afternoon.

Getting there is really easy, since there's a bike path that runs between here and there. Said bike path goes through a couple of parks on the way. One of these parks is notorious for its population of geese.

The geese weren't around today -- wrong time of year -- but there were a couple of duck families. The ducklings were at that awkward stage where they still follow Mom around everywhere, but are big enough to be working on that whole "independence" thing.

On my right: a cluster of about six ducklings. On my left: Mama duck and the last of the brood. Behind me: another biker. What does the lone duckling on the left do? He tries to cross the path. Makes it about 3/4 of the way there, quacking contentedly the entire way, when he sees me, and decides to turn around and run back to his mother.

You know that bit in Make Way for Ducklings where the duck family nearly gets hit by the bike?

Um, yeah. That's about it.

At that point, I'd slowed down, and if the duckling had just kept going, he'd have crossed before I got to him. Instead, I had to swerve. I'm fine, but I was cursing at the ducks and the guy behind me was laughing his ass off. I was, too, once I got done swearing.

So, I repeat: ARGH. WATERFOWL.

(At least it wasn't a gosling. Mama goose would probably have gone after me.)

So, I only have one class on Mondays and Wednesdays. There's also the Monday meeting where they make sure everyone's all right after the weekend and occasionally make announcements or dole out cash, but that doesn't count as a class. On Wednesday we took a midterm in that class, and I knew after the fact that I'd either done really well or really poorly. Either way, the midterm was one question: "What makes the European Union a union?" The professor (who is one of the pickiest people on the planet but also one of the fairest) even let us type our essays. Good thing, because after three hours of writing by hand, especially with a rough and final draft, my hands totally give out and my handwriting becomes even more write-only than usual.

We got our exams back today.

He spent the last ten minutes of class outlining what he'd have written for the essay and where we collectively went wrong, and I spent that entire time going "ohshit ohshit ohshit ohshit I didn't do it that way." Then he said "More importantly, not many of you stuck to the question the entire time. If I wanted to know the entire history of the European Union, I'd have asked that." And I relaxed a bit. Not much, though. Then he wrote the spread of grades on the board. One A, two A-minuses, a few B-pluses, about 12 Bs and B-minuses, and a few lower grades, but nothing worse than C-minus.

And then he said, "I'm sure you're all wondering who got that A." Half the class guesses one of the government majors. The other half guesses the guy who got the only A on the last test we had.

"Nope. The A goes to the only person who followed the question all the way through: Miss hopefulnebula." And BOOM. Every bit of pent-up "ohshit" goes flying from me like a politician from accountability and I start laughing. (Not the funny kind of laughter, but the "tension release" kind of laughter.)

AP English saves my ass again. Your cogent, complete, well-written essay in forty minutes or less, or my bad grade is free. (OK, so it took longer this time. AP prompts weren't thirty percent of my grade.)

The prof did say that the points he did take off were because I didn't give the details he'd outlined in the "what I'd do if I had to answer this question," but I think he was glad that somebody in the class knew how to answer the question given as opposed to taking buzzwords.


Also, it's supposed to snow on Wednesday. I hate the cold. Very glad I brought my warm fuzzysocks that I got for Christmas 05 here.

...crap, is it really only 40 minutes to midnight? Eeesh. I have classes tomorrow.

(P.S. "No Heroes spoilers" still applies. Rumor has it something big is going down tonight and I don't want to find out before I can see it.)

Today's been rather unremarkable, really. Went to Four Mile for their Fourth of July stuff... it's a lot more fun when you're a little kid and *allowed* to do all the fun stuff. All that really happened was me getting dehydrated and just feeling like crap. Was also a bit short with Chris. She's very sweet but not all that bright. I ended up taking a nap shortly after coming back, have been getting rehydrated. Been housesitting for the neighbors; the hard (and time-consuming) thing is watering the lawn. Their sprinkler system died a couple years back and they haven't fixed it yet. It gives me a chance to reminisce, though. And I figured I'd share.

( Cut because this is long )