so, i promised a new post. and here i am to deliver on that promise. if you manage to click all the links that are sporadically & randomly placed throughout this post, then you are about to spend a great deal of time. just a warning. Also, since it would just make the post even more incredibly huge, all the photos that i want to put in the post will be placed in links taking you to the specific photos on my Picasa Web Album. 


SCHOOL!
so here i am at UNCW again. unfortunately this time  i have extremely difficult class that i'm actually having to study for. i have no clue how to study, so i'm just kinda making it up as i go along. fucking mammalogy is the biggest problem. i have to know way too much stuff for this class. as per that link (the only non-random link in the post), i need to know most of the extant orders of mammals, and then families within them. it is a very difficult class that i am regretting taking; no one needs to know all this stuff.

on the flip side of that are the super easy classes that i'm taking. genetics so far has been a breeze, so nothing to worry about there. probably the same will hold true for ecology. labs for those 2 classes might be a bit annoying, but nothing i won't be able to handle.

my only other classes are child psych, which is incredibly dull. i'll be pleased to ease my way through the class without trying, and still making a B. my only interest in the class was that it fit so beautifully in my schedule. then i have a weekly seminar class about the conservation of carnivores. basically are entire grade is a paper/presentation that we give at the end of the semester on the current conservation  methods of some endangered carnivore. i'm leaning toward snow leopards right now, but i'm undecided yet as to what my topic will be.

LOVE!
sydney and i are done. no chance of ever getting back together; the 2 week experiment to try and make something work at the start of school failed. still managing to be friends though. moving on...

FOOD!
so, as per-usual i am doing my best to always be on top of things when it comes to  culinary endeavors. made coconut dulche de leche, which was a success. also went very extravagant at one point and made my own chocolate covered peanuts & sunflower seeds. i also got a mini-blender; just something for under $20. i was able to make my own pesto with it, so that was a success. i still really need to go to the freshmarket and get spices, because i am fresh out of basically all my spices. somehow i've been cooking without cumin, and that just seems impossible. on a completely different note, me and Sam have been trying all sorts of new beers. we've gone to the freshmarket to get the make your own 6 pack, and collected an assortment of different brews. some good, like this one we tried made of Sorghum, instead of wheat & barley. definitely the best beer i've ever had. we still have a hard pear cider to try, which sounds so awesome that we've been saving it. i've also had the chance to cook some incredibly fresh fish that sam has caught; in fact after i'm done writing this up, i'm off to cook a shark that he & olga caught last night. should be really interesting.

MISCELLANEOUS!
i'm exercising a lot more than i used to. still don't go to the gym; i just don't care for that environment, but i am doing a bike ride around campus 4 nights a week. it's fairly long to go all the way around campus, so it's a reasonable enough workout. also about once a week my roommates & I have been out kicking a soccerball around for a good amount of time, so that feels like physical activity. so since this is the first actual talking post of the new school year i feel it needs to be said that i love my living arrangement. super awesome roommates and the appartment we're in is a million times nicer than last year.
oh yeah, i've been looking into doing some volunteer work to make my resume stand out and what-not. i found a grad student that is doing field work with migratory sparrows, so it looks like i might get to help out with that, which should be reasonably neat. i did get plenty of training for handling song birds over the summer, so we'll see how it goes. if it's good, i might even do this stupid honors project on it; but if not, whatever i have no qualms with ditching honors as soon as they are no use to me. 
oh yeah, it's still in the planning stages at the moment, but there is a rough plan to make a roadtrip up to DC for Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity

IN REVIEW!
so overall life's not too shabby at the moment. a few speed bumps, but really going pretty well, all things considered. classes are relatively good, although i'm actually having to try and i greatly dislike that. as always i will try to do more periodic posts, but i find this blog is a much better outlet for internet videos and cool pictures. but every once in a while i'll let people know what's going on. oh yeah, if you have any design/layout preferences or ideas just leave a comment or let me know; i'm always looking for new ways to spice up the look of this thing.