My Friday schedule has four classes, three are close together, the 4th is after a two hour break, piece of cake.  Wake up at 8:10, ride the train, do a lot of stat, break, law, come home.  Easy.  I found easier,  leave at 11:00 AM after the 3rd class, sleep to 2 PM.  Notice a pattern here?

So, my new schedule has be only taking 1 Thursday class, piece of cake.  Wake up at 11:30, ride the train, do some stat, come home.  Easy.  I found easier, sleep to 2 PM.

The air conditioning in the Jeep Cherokee hasn’t been working, and with exception of the hotter days, I have no problem with it but after weeks of fiddling, the Robinsons are yet to determine the root cause of the air conditioning kartoffel.  Today at the intersection of Bridgetown Pike and a street that comes off of bridgetown pike, a truck in front of me slams on reverse.  I have a car immediately behind me so can’t really move and I got terribly excited at the concept of being hit, blaming the AC problem on him and having everyone (but the truck driver) leave happy.  In fact, I was so excited I photographed the religious iconography on the back of his truck, here’s the one side, and the other. As I’m giggling like a schoolgirl he slams the breaks, pokes his head out the window and yells “sorry!”.  You should be.

Business Ethics is now a required class for Act. Sci. and all other business majors and today was the first session of what I imagine will make a long semester.  We started what will be a two-day process of watching the “documentary” The Corporation with such unbiased notables as Howard Zinn and Noam Chompsky as commentators.  At it’s conclusion:
Instructor: Any questions?
Me: Isn’t it hypocritical to start a class on Ethics by showing a copyrighted film in its entirety?
*Silence and angry stare*
I think I’m now officially the agent of The Man, a role I’ll have no qualms fulfilling.

Act Sci 3596 is the capstone course for Actuarial Science and today we did the “hi, my name is” routine asking where everyone was in the major as well as job experience.  The teacher was very inquisitive about everything until he got to me:
Me: I’ve worked on and off for a pharmaceutical firm for the last few years and recently I’ve done some CAPA work as well.
Teacher: What division?
Me: Chronic care, making medical devices
Teacher: What type of devices?
Me: Ostomy appliances
Teacher: Like?
Me: Colostomy bags and Fecal Management Systems.
(At this point he has no idea what I’m talking about but pressed on)
Teacher: And who was your target group?
Me: People who can’t shit right.
Teacher: Oh. *Giggles from people who’ve heard this before* Okay, why did you pick Act. Sci as your major?
Me: To win a bet with my High School Calculus Teacher.
Teacher: Moving on, Kelly Roh?

At the end of the camp season, I asked for a #10 can of Rice Pudding.  Why? Because I love rice pudding.  So, after a mediocre pork dinner provided by my brother I pulled out my can of pudding eliciting gasps of awe from the other table-sitters.  I stroll, can in hand, over to the can opener and put the can in.  Nothing.  Apparently, the ChefMagic can opener wasn’t design to go through food-service grade aluminum.  The blade eventually catches and cleanly scratches the top of the can.  I could feel it with my finger so I put the can in and let the opener go nuts for 10 minutes while we watch people get hit in the junk by footballs or are pants.  The brave blade finally breaks through and lets out a blood curdling screech as the actual aluminum is cut.  The blade immediately stops again and my father, with Robinson family ingenuity goes at it with the can opener.  Shortly the blood-curdling in screech is replaced with a teeth-jarring/spine-tingling howl.  There’s good news and bad news.  The good news: The can’s open.  The bad news: My father may be arrested for appliance abuse.  Anyone know of a good can-opener?

9.5 hours of work as my last official day at work went well and was followed by a 5-Color Event where I got win my own prize.  But the part of the day that will live in my memory for eternity occurred at the diner afterwards.  The American Star Diner located on Route 63 smacks of aged management, the drinks don’t have free refills, lettuce on a burger is extra and the salad bar contains pickled beets.  I scoured the menu for value and found it: the plain omelet with cheese for $4.75.  No, not the cheese omelet, which would have cost $5.25, but the plain omelet with a side of cheese.  Also, to get four scrabbled eggs with cheese would have been $6.50 and didn’t include the hash browns or the wheat toast that I ordered, which was written down as white, and was served as rye.  So, for the first time in four years, I walked out a diner having only paid $6.00 for the meal.  This was immediately followed by standing around like tools it the parking lot trying to remember two jokes which I later recalled and insisted on calling a 1/2 dozen people at midnight to tell.

Joke 1: What’s the difference between McJagger and a Scotsman?  McJagger says “hey you, get off of my cloud!” the Scotsman says “Hey McCloud, get off of my ewe!”
Joke 2: What’s the difference between a trapeze act and a strip show? One is a cunning display of stunts, and you can figure out the rest.

Finally, Katie Wesachipwich called me while intoxicated, which isn’t terribly different from talking to her normally except I don’t get hit as much and she apologizes for grammatical errors.  We shall have to spend an enchanting evening with a fine wine-in-a-box.

I pop my head off the pillow at 7:30 AM and my lacrimal sacs are the size of limes.  It appears my ascetic camp lifestyle has collided with my mold laden house to remind me that no degree of egotism can fend off mold allergies.  I’m sneezing twice a minute and I do the most reasonable thing to stop my allergies: Take Actuarial Exam M now rather than after four hours of studying and sacrifice any chance at passage to stop the stupid sneezing.  I arrive at the Thompson Learning Center and am nearly strip searched to verify that I’m not bringing in a blacklisted calculator or crib sheet and escort to the cell block/test-taking area where I begin to attack the three-hour juggernaut that’s about to crush me.  And crush me it did as I just barely escaped breaking the colobus barrier.  For the initiated, the colobus barrier is grade that random guessing would yield on an exam or equivalently if a colobus monkey took it.  For this, a four choice exam of 30 questions, the colobus barrier would be passed at about 7 or 8 questions.  I’m confident I got 10, sticking it to our genetic cousins.  Actuarial Exams are odd in that the higher they go in progression the more infantile the questions.  Exam P, the first one, involves risk calculations on hurricanes destroying small nations whereas Exam FM, the second, revolves around investment instruments for pools of people.  Exam M involves questions about septuagenarian mall walkers picking up coins with a certain distribution.  The 9th exam must consist of successfully completing a choose your own adventure with the 10th and final exam including a coloring book.

Today was my last day at work (well, Saturday technically is but nyeh) and as I broach the door of the building I am immediately stopped by the receptionist who says “Are you (dramatic pause) Terry?”, “yes” I said.  Man sitting in chair “they told me you would come to help!” WTF.  Everyone else was apparently out and a repairman came and needed to sign in and somehow he remembers me from a conversation three years ago at a coffee machine which included the statement “hm… I had no idea that the quality control for sex toys was so rigorous”.  On my last day someone decides to make me the fucking emissary of lab technicians and I now have the magical power to sign-in outsiders and give them parking passes.  This is the camp equivalent of a CIT changing a unit roster so I wrote it off as a side effect of wearing a Hawaiian shirt.  The guy’s now in and he leans real close to me and with a face you expect from someone who’s about to punch or kiss you says “I don’t have ladder… *pause* can I borrow your step stool” then he raises an eyebrow.  I give him a kick stool and all is fine until the final moment of weirdness upon his departure where he says “I hear it’s your last day, see you next time”.

Three times in the last 24 hours my gender has been spontaneously changed on me:
1) I received a renewal to the FPRI addressed to Ms. Terry Robinson.  I receive mail of this kind on a certain basis but this blew my mind as I’ve been a member for almost 5 years and none of the previous ones included Ms. on them.
2) I submitted a question about fletching atlatl darts to National Archery Supply and despite the form asking me for my God-damn name, the reply was addressed to Ms. Terri Robinson
3) Temple University sent an informational package addressed to my parents about graduation rings.  All well and good but every design was for women’s rings.