Programming, espresso, and grumbling.

I just had my first day of classes and I’m excited about the semester, but depressed about how much money I just spent on books. This semester hit a lot harder than last semester where the most I think I spent was maybe $60 on a book. Let’s run down a list of what I just paid, and mind you I have no problem with international editions or softcovers, and I buy used when possible. These prices include tax and shipping (which was no more than $5 from any seller):

• requirements engineering book – $50.69
• human factors engineering book – $76.95 — This bitch (the book, not the professor—I think I’m going to <3 my professor, she seems awesome) is like 700 pages and costs as much as $199 new. Even the international paperback version I bought is pretty expensive, and the seller didn’t have the highest feedback rating but I was like “screw it, I’m not paying $150 to have a slightly less shady seller”. I hate it when the choice comes down to paying way more to get the non-international version from a reputable mainstream seller, like Amazon, or some random Amazon Marketplace or individual bookseller.
• Linux kernel books – $21.49 and $23.96

Total: $173.09

Oh, and I forgot I also have to get a membership to access the digital archives of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society for $35 to read some course material. And let’s not discuss how much I’m borrowing in loans just to attend graduate school. All I’m saying is I’d better make some good moolah after I have my Master’s, because I’m'a owe the government a lot of money.

In other news, sorry for the lack of blogging! You haven’t missed out on much, I’ve just been working before classes started (again with the money stuff…) and hanging out with Jon on the weekends. I had some excitement yesterday, though, when turning left on a green arrow and almost getting wiped out by some ass who ran the red light at the intersection. I swerved right, he swerved left, and I smoothly pulled into the gas station I was trying to get to anyway. It all happened so quickly, I barely realized what had almost occurred until I was going to fill up my tank. The guy had the strangest expression on his face, too, which I saw as I swerved to avoid him. It was the kind of expression one might make when they’re exasperated at spilling food on their shirt or something. Not what I expect from the responsible party in a near-collision. Or is that a near miss? Whatever.

So I don’t know if they breed us engineering majors to be dull or if I just got a lucky mix in my psychology class, but there are some awesome people in there. We did the usual go-around-the-room-and-introduce-yourself thing and right off the bat, first girl, she says she used to travel with a juggling and acrobatic group and she can still juggle torches. Our prof confirmed that she didn’t mean “torch” in the British sense of the word, a.k.a. “flashlight”, but rather real, honest-to-goodness sticks of fire. The girl looked totally normal, too, just your average skinny pretty brunette-with-blonde-highlights in some academic sweatshirt. She said she used to perform at Renaissance fairs which perked up the girl next to me, with whom I had spoken previously when she first entered the room and whose name I will not forget (more on that later), who had to add that Renaissance fairs were awesome even though torch-juggler said she was embarrassed and felt dorky. Several of us declared that she was not at all dorky and that torch juggling is way awesome.

The next cool person was another girl about halfway around the room: she breeds snakes. She launched into this discussion of how she took her “pewters” to some snake expo (?!) and didn’t sell any because kids were interested in paying $10 for some corn snake instead of “$120 to get something awesome”, as she put it. Haha. The guy sitting right next to her jumps out of airplanes, is apparently certified to do it, and is going to do something with the army next semester, I believe he said. Then finally you get to the girl next to me whose neatness was milder than the others, but still a bit interesting: she trains dogs. This is the girl whose name I won’t forget because she introduced herself as Virginia and I promptly asked, thinking of Harry Potter, if she goes by “Ginny” or “Virginia”. She then started telling me about how she gets called everything from Ginny to Virg to Catherine and Elizabeth, just because people recognize it’s some old classic name and they associate “Virginia” with British royalty. I suggested calling her “Vinny” to get the Italian mobster angle in there, and I also think “Queenie” could do if we’re sticking to the royalty idea.