22.10.08

Welcome to the no gamble grind of what seems middle-class and above

Another woot-off! I can't handle this pressure!

So I went back to the doctor yesterday, since I hadn't felt any better, and I saw Dr. Ness, who's this awesome old guy who's actually the head of the practice at the clinic I go to. He decided to take an "aggressive approach" as he put it, and prescribed me a high-power antibiotic, steroids, and an anti-histamine nasal spray. The nasal spray was free, and he gave me enough to last the rest of the semester, so I walked out with a brown paper bag full of nasal spray. The diagnosis was that I have a lingering infection, coupled with sudden allergies to Sampson; so yes, the kitty's adorable, but he is killing me slowly. Hopefully the nasal spray will be enough to keep his immense dander reserves at bay. Can't we sign a mutual disarmament agreement?

This weekend was amazing when I wasn't really sick or waking up in the middle of the night scratching my eyeballs. On Friday night hello blacksmith played The Basement; we were a little rusty, ok, a lot rusty, but I still had a good time. It was good to be playing that music again. Then on Saturday I worked a bunch, but saw Tessa and Jamie after that. Sunday was weird; I was supposed to work on a project with Adam, but instead I just ended up waking up with a swollen eye and laying around at home watching football with my folks and eating crab fingers. Then I worked, while fucked up, which was too bad. Yesterday I ended up hanging out with Jamie and Jenny and Martin, playing poker and eating Mesa pizza. Today I woke up late, got a bunch of research materials from the library for my genetic algorithms project, went to class, and then played through our music again with Martin, which was amazing, figured out recording stuff on our free mixer, and even got to talk to Angie for a little bit, which is a blessing, as she is in the middle of Tech Week for UVA's production of King Lear (it's the bit in the middle about "Cordelia, you go long").

Other than being sick, life's alright. This week is much easier than past weeks; in fact, the semester is lightening up a bit as my classes move away from learning lots of shit to writing papers and reflecting. I get to work on a project creating Neural Networks to identify 50x50 pixel characters (A, B, C, etc.), a project implementing a genetic algorithm to quickly exponentiate (frex. x^41 really really fast), and a paper about either Schiller's "Aesthetische Politik" or Herder's "Bloekende Schaff" allegory for language development. Wooooo.

Also, in 8 days I will be leaving Minnesota to visit my darling girlfriend. It will be Halloween that weekend. It's going to be awesome.