Plucked and Beheaded

So, if you'll recall my post from earlier, the water was freezing when I took my shower. Well, to follow-up, as one might expect the water was warm as soon as I came back to brush my teeth. Oh well, that's the way the cookie crumbles. And with that sentence I just thought of my topic! 10 points to spontaneity! Or Gryffindor. Whichever you prefer.

You probably already figured what I'm going to post, but nonetheless, here I go.

The saying "that's the way the the cookie crumbles" is a strange saying. Who thought of using cookies as a metaphor for life? And what type of cookies? In any case, who ever thought of it was likely eating a cookie at the time. I'm still not sure how the saying came to being, and why it's not some other food like "that's the way the pizza's sliced" or "that's the way the chicken's plucked and beheaded" I am also unsure as to how the saying grew a negative connotation. Last I checked, you can still eat a crumbled cookie and it will taste the same. Well, that's how I've been raised at least. However, I am sure of this:

Murphy's law seems to
Be not unlike the way that
The cookie crumbles


Have you noticed that? Whenever something bad happens to someone they say "that's the way the cookie crumbles" as in one can expect bad things in life. It's just so pessimistic. Here's what I suggest: Take back the cookie! Bring it back as a positive reinforcement of good behavior! If something good happens to someone, say "that's the way the cookie crumbles into delicious melted chocolaty bits of goodness!" The end. I will now eat a cookie which I conveniently keep in my backpack.

Also, on another note, my 100th post is quickly approaching and I will be presenting you with a surprise for it.

Is this Water COLD COLD COLD? Or hot? (it's the first one, trust me)

So for the past few days, we've had a recurring issue here in Dickson: There is no hot water. Now, this issue seems to be erratic. Occasionally there will be hot water, other times, there will be none and the water will be absolutely freezing. This morning is one such time. I just took the COLDEST (and probably shortest) shower of my entire life. Yes, I could have gone to a different floor's shower, but that would have taken far too long, and there would be no guarantee of their having hot water. So pretty much whenever there is hot water, you need to take advantage of it. For example, last night when I was getting ready for bed I should have taken a shower. If you get back just to grab a book and go to the bathroom in the middle of the afternoon and the water is warm: take a shower. If you wake up in the middle of the night and need to pee, and the water is warm: take a shower. Get the picture?

Now, our dorm is really the only one with this problem, seeing as it is older than Anthony Hopkins and considering that it is the biggest dorm in the Ivies. However, we don't face other problems:

At Cornell one must
Choose between paper thin walls
And ice cold water

Yep, you can have the new dorms, and be able to hear your suit-mate sneeze in the next room over, or you can have my problem. Or you can be in another dorm, but they just suck. Well, it depends. But riot-proof dorms really aren't great when you're in a rush (woooo 100 feet per minute elevators). And most of the others are butt-ugly. Except Balch. But I can't be in Balch. If only...

Finale Needs To See Its Finale

So you may have noticed that I only had one post up yesterday. That is because I have decided to start using Finale to arrange music. And let me tell you, it's a pain. Here's my verdict on Finale:

If Finale could
Be simple like Garageband
I'd stop killing trees


But sadly, Finale is a pain in the ass to start out with, a pain in the ass to get used to, and a pain in the ass once you're used to it. If it could do everything you can simply do with a piece of paper, it would be amazing. But it can't, and you're stuck spending an hour trying to get it to show what you could do in 10 seconds on paper. I'd be using paper if my printer's cable wasn't broken (piece of crap got bent). I will have a longer post later to compensate for this venting.

Severed Arm Robbery

Well, today's another day. I suppose that's a stupid thing to say, since each and every day will be another day. Unless you invent a time machine. But that's pretty unrealistic. But anyways.

The other day, an email was sent out to Cornell students using the "crime alert" system we have here, meant to keep people up to date on crime happenings in the neighborhood. This specific email was regarding a "strong-arm robbery" that occurred in collegetown Sunday night. You may be wondering what exactly is a strong-arm robbery? I was wondering the same thing. Is it something where somebody is carrying heavy arms, like a machine gun? Or someone just strongly holds a pistol? Or they use a steel-reinforced severed arm, knock a person out, and stole their purse? Luckily, it is not any of those (I know some of you may have been hoping for that last one). Nope, a strong-arm robbery is simple when someone strongly grabs another person's arm and then takes their purse. I think. In any case, here's my haiku, which will likely be another failed analogy:

Cornell crime alert
Is to hyperbole as
Squirrels are to air


By this, I mean that each uses their respective thing (hyperbole or air) all the time. I don't know why squirrels came to mind. I'm weird like that. But anywho, Cornell crime alert will greatly exaggerate. They won't do so in their report, but rather with their names. They say "strong-arm robbery" and guns and such come to mind, as in an "armed robbery." Earlier this year they had "forcible touching" which sounds like sexual molestation and such, but is actually just someone grabbing and shaking somebody else. I wouldn't be surprised to see something like "sexual aggressions and forcible sexual assault" in reference to a drunk accidentally giving a woman squeeze. But in any case, they help keep us alert and for that we should be thankful. However try to remember, they're like condoms: their effectiveness is greatly reduced if you forget about them.

The Study of Escalators

So far, today has been good to me. I think I did decently on my prelim, did well on my medieval studies paper (which I turned into a creative writing parodying medieval romances... I may post it once I edit it), received a good grade on my survey of jazz paper, and am satisfied with the other paper I'm turning in today. It also helps that it is absolutely beautiful outside today.

So today in medieval studies, my professor for some reason began talking about the end of the world (he goes on tangents) and came to something called "eschatology" (don't look it up yet, I'll explain). I immediately assumed what you too are probably assuming, but here's the deal:

Eschatology
Is sadly not the study
Of escalators


I was really hoping that somehow our professor was going to talk about escalators, considering their awesomeness and all (speaking of which, we need one for Libe slope), but that's not the case. Eschatology, is in fact, a study (Well, not really a study... more like a concept) relating to the end of the world. Experts in the field include R.E.M. and the Mayans.

Preliminaries: Last Student Standing

So today I have another exam (or prelim, as we call it) and have a paper due. The exam is for sociology, and I pretty much failed my previous one, so I've been doing alot of studying (by pretty much fail, I mean I got a B-, which though not too bad is horrible in comparison to the rest of the class and to the quality of work I should be doing). I hope to do a bit better on this one.

This brings me to the primary topic for this post: Exams. I am incredibly lucky with my exams. While most my friends and acquaintances have weeks in which they have anywhere from 1-4 exams, I have them once in a while. This is due to the fact that only one of my classes is regular with exams, whereas all of my other classes either have periodic quizzes or no exams. But still, I manage to have them often enough, when combined with the large number of papers I have. Why am I still talking about myself, no one cares. Oh well, my haiku:

You know that you're at
Cornell when exams are called
Preliminaries


The idea of a preliminary is most commonly found in sports. It refers to the rounds prior to finals and such which you will make it to- if you survive preliminaries. If you apply this model to the Cornell exam schedule, you get a rather bleak outlook: You take these exams, and if you don't survive, you don't make it to finals. Whether this survival refers to staying in a class or staying alive is up in the air. But in any case, the origin of the name is not something to think about.

"I Want to Ride my Bicycle"

Well, I slept about 11 hours last night. Very nice, but a little unnecessary probably. It's a beautiful sunny day outside now, but is likely freezing nonetheless (my weather widget informs me that it is 47.1 degrees). Now what to write about...

Something I've noticed around campus is the large number of bicycles. Outside of every building you can find bikes tied up to anything from a bike rack to a large dog (I have yet to see the latter). Bikes can be incredibly convenient, as they allow you to quickly get from point A to point B without waiting for the bus, hurting your feet, or accepting quartercards (those cards handed out by people to advertise). You do have to find a bike rack or column to tie it up to, but that's not too much of an issue considering that bike racks are more common than trash cans here (we have about 2 trashcans on campus... or so it seems whenever you have to throw something away). But this brings me to my haiku:

Why bring bicycles
When they're only safe to use
For a month or two


So you go through all of the trouble of bringing your bike, and then you're all like "yay! I'm lazy and can quickly and antisocially get from class to class!" Then a month later it snows and you're all like "damnit" and have to walk like a normal person or take the bus like a normal lazy person. And so now you're stuck with a hunk of metal and need to keep it in your dorm room so that it doesn't rust and people will come into your dorm room and be like "pfft, nice bike, dork" and you'll be like "shut up jerk" and you'll regret having your bike. Also, something worth noticing is that the number of bikes on north campus (aka freshmen land) is greater than the number around any other part of campus. What does this tell us? Maybe that bikes are something freshmen bring and then realize that it's a silly and unnecessary commodity (no way!)?

Title is from the Queen song "Bicycle."