School, Roommates, and Other Randomness

First week of grad school = done! There are 13 people in my cohort (first year MS Sociology students), with 11 women and 2 men. Poor guys. We have a good mix of people from all over, one from NC, one from NY, one who hasn't been in school for about 20 years, about half or more of the women are married, and we have pretty varied interests in what we want to do with our degrees. Everyone seems pretty nice so far, and we're all making friends because we're in the same classes and grad lab all the time. Five of us went and got lunch in the Cougareat today, and like the creative people we are, we decided to give fake names to the Taco Bell people. We decided to give them the names of sociologists, so A told them she was Karl Marx, T said she was Emile Durkheim, I said my name was Weber (the guy wrote down "Vaber"), and then I heard C tell them he was "Brianne Burr", hahaha. It was silly.

I think I've read probably 400 pages just this week of sociology books, and written three papers. I was also supposed to present on a few chapters in one of our readings, but we didn't have time. I get to present that on Tuesday along with another topic for a different class. Lots of presenting and trying to impress, woo hoo. Next week the real fun begins, when I get to start working, too! I haven't heard back yet if I'm still accompanying that jr high musical this fall (did I blog about that?), but I'm hoping to hear back soon because she wanted to start that asap. So soon enough I'll be working about 26 hours per week (20 doing research and roughly 6 for the musical), with classes M-Th, and lots and lots of homework. Doable, but exhausting. I was hoping to make it to the gym and the temple regularly, too. Sigh.

Also, there was a HUGE spider on our door, just sitting on the middle of the outward side. Luckily one of the guys outside was able to kill it, but seriously, I'd never seen one so big. From one end to the other it was probably two inches, and a dark reddish brown color. FREAKY. My roommate C and I have been freaking out ever since about there being more...and then there were two more in our bathroom! Smaller ones, but still. I hate spiders! ("I hate sunshine! I hate horrible wholesome sunshine!!")

Things are turning out okay with my freshman roommate, L. She's gotten better about her alarm (setting it and turning it off), lights, leaving things out, etc. but there are other struggles. She's gone to bed between 9:30 and 10:30 almost every night (usually 10 or earlier), which is frustrating for me since I live in that room, too. No, she doesn't work early in the mornings; this means that she gets approximately 9-10 hours of sleep per night. She doesn't really have freshman friends, though we keep encouraging her to make some and hang out with them because she seems so overwhelmed by how "old" our ward is. (Here she is, thinking we're all old, and here I am, thinking that they're all young.) That, plus the fact that she doesn't work, means that she is home all the time, not really doing anything, just sitting around, occasionally reading or writing, but mostly seeming to wait for something that she never expresses, not even when you ask her. She doesn't ask questions or try to keep a conversation going...I'll ask her tons of things about herself, and she'll give very short answers and say nothing back. It makes for a lot of awkward silences. She has also already shown a tendency to judge those around her by what she deems to be their unrighteous behavior...hooray for yet another roommate who is like that! (I need to move out of Utah, they seem to flock here.) Thoughts on how best to handle this situation?

I am SO STOKED for Bones and for Glee. =) I want them to start right now!

"It took Linda, then it came after me. It got into my arm, and then it went bad, so I lopped it off with a chainsaw. But that didn't stop it, it came back big time..."