Okay, quick update... I got a B+ on my plant biology midterm, I took the appeal letter to the financial aid office, and my application for Bodega was received. I will get the results for the application on May 13th so wish me luck.
posted by Congofeet at 4:07 PM

So, now that my truck is fixed I had to go out and do the horrible deed of filling up the gas tank...and thus this Haiku was born:

Gasing up my truck
It is the first time in months
My wallet's weeping.


posted by Congofeet at 10:52 PM

So I took out the SMOG PUMP for my truck today, as it turns out it was not the steering pump that was messed up. Stupid speede lube guy. And to top it off that dumbass quoted me a cost of $350 for the part and fixing it. It cost $60 bucks online and it took me, tamo and alex less than an hour to pull it out. I thought something was up when we pulled off the tubing and nothing came out. So tamo and I are going to go to woodland tomorrow and get the new part I ordered...the correct part and put that sucka in also.... well that is all for now...leights.
posted by Congofeet at 12:13 AM

Quick notes:

-Got a 90/100 on my econ test

-Wrote the appeal the financial aid office, to be turned in on monday

-Got Dr. Cech to write me a recommendation for my application, that means that I have two now, one from Dr. Cech and one from Dr. Wainwright. These are great drs to get letters of rec from.

-Going to type my letter to the application this weekend and try and mail it by monday or tuesday

-Tis all for now
posted by Congofeet at 8:44 PM

So I have not published for a while since my bleh post, so I'll tell you how things are since. While I did clean up my room a bit I made it a mess just the other day looking for the key to my bike lock, still did not find the key. I have managed to get somethings accomplished though, and it makes me feel a lot better...I guess all I need to do to feel better is to get something done everyday, not just any something though, something that clears something up, or makes my life a little better some how. Monday I went to work for 5 hours and cleaned up the fish tanks (thats 2 points for me as it takes care of business and makes the fish happy), Tuesday I went to dutton to figure out what was up with my financial aid and how to try and fix it, and today I asked Dr. wainwright and another dr. for letters of recommendation so I can apply to that bodega marine lab thingy. Here is more information on it if you would like to read about it. Apparently it is open to everyone, and by everyone I mean outside of UCD, outside of CA, and so forth. So if I make it into this program it would look nice on my Grad school application in the not so distant future.

I also had a midterm and a quiz today...9/10 on the quiz, and I think I did fine on the midterm, only time will tell on that. One more midterm tomorrw (I did not even know they were coming, it seems so soon) and I hope I do well. I wanted to do well last quarter, but alas I usually screw up on finals and last quarter was no different.

Finally this is also something I did. Scroll down on the page and you'll see a correction that I emailed this site. It feels good to know this stuff and for a fleeting second I felt smart. I know my fish professors would be proud of me.

Thats all for now, I guess I should study...or do something that does not indicate that I have been not studying...oh one quick thing, I have been listening to my music for about 4 hours now and it is quite refreshing, it takes my mind off the drudgery of the day, maybe you should try it sometime...leights
posted by Congofeet at 4:41 PM

well, it is time for one of those blogs (warning: random thoughts ahoy)...

This may sound odd, but I have been walking more slowly than normal lately. You may be asking yourself why this matters, but I have pinpointed the reason...I am thinking to myself as I walk, slowing down my pace. I am trying, struggling to find out what is wrong with me. Thinking, talking, to myself searching for the reason I cannot feel normally. I have been feeling this way for almost a month now, and I still cannot find the reason. I believe one reason is my relationship with Steph, I can feel it changing and slipping away. I feel more distant from her than I have ever felt before and it is chewing on me...wearing me down. Both steph and I have no clue what exactly is going on we are just not the same. I feel our relationship is sitting at a very pivotal point, it can either make the turn towards being wonderful again, or it can slump further into non-existence. Perhaps though, I should not even be letting this get to me, as steph says I am not the highest priority, school is. I am not sure if school is my number one priority though. My number one priority is to be comfortable and happy. School is not doing that for me, and the one thing that used to be doing it for me is well...slipping away. The one thing that kept me sane in an insane world is slipping and I feel that I am slipping with it. I am not sure what got me here, how was I able to get this far without her...It was most likely my family, and although they are still there for me they are not here for me like they used to be. I am no longer comfortable and happy, I look around at where I am and who I am and I become depressed and bitter...

steph asked me if I was happy with myself, and I very truthfully said "No." What am I doing to change this though, if you are not happy with how things are change them. So here I sit...Monday, April 11, 2005...what have I done with my life, where is my life... "So James, what's new?"... The question that cuts to my core...nothing is new...nothing at all. I wake up, go to class, eat, go to work, go home, do homework, go to sleep... my life has become the very thing I did not want it to be... it sucks. I always thought of myself as not being content with doing the same things day in and day out, and yet here I am doing the same shit day in and day out. Some people will say that’s tough, life is all about that same basic routine...well if that's life, then I want no part of it.

Now before you go rushing to the phone worried about me doing something foolish, don’t bother, I would never take my life. However, I would like to drastically change it. For a while I was content because I changed a little bit. I'd walk home instead of taking the bus, the 45 minute walk was refreshing for a while, but now it is just drudgery. So I take the bus home again...I don't know where this is going...so I'll just stop this paragraph...

So...changing...changing because I am not happy, what will I do to expunge my unhappiness from my life. First I have to locate the reasons for me being unhappy and I guess I can start of generally:

-I am tired of the filth of an apartment I live in
-I am tired of getting sub-par grades
-I am tired of depending on people
-I am tired of my daily routine
-I am tired of not feeling accomplished
-I am tired of looking at a fat slob in the mirror
-I am tired of not being happy
-I am tired of not being comfortable
-I am tired of making people happy at the expense of my own happiness

What am I going to do to change these things...who knows. I know what I should do, anybody who can read can see that, so I don't want any messages telling me how to fix flagrantly obvious things...such as well if you don’t like your grades you should study more...that means nothing to me, I wish it was that easy. I don't think anybody on earth can understand why it is so difficult for me to study, hell I don't even know. Steph says I am hypocrite for telling my brothers to study when I myself don't. The reason I tell them to study is because I do not want them to turn out like me when it comes to studying, I need them to build up their studying habits. I am like a smoker, I am addicted to not studying and I can't have my brothers turn out that way. I find it depressing that I can't study, even when I know that I need to. Do I not study because I want to not study, or do I not study because I can't. I feel that it is the latter, but others tell me it is the former. To tell you the truth I don't even know any more...

So I am spinning out of control, but I know that I'll get though this, I always find a way, I am just riding out this storm hoping for an end, although none is in sight.
posted by Congofeet at 2:47 PM

So I am taking this Evolution of Crop Plants class to finish up my major requirements and it sounded kinda interesting but after the first lecture it seemed like it would be boring. However, today I learned something interesting in the class:

Mango comes from the same family as cashew, pistachio, poison oak, and poison sumac. So next time you take a bite out of that mango think about the family it comes from. Oh, one more thing about mango...it originates from India and southeast asia, just in case you thought it was a south american fruit originally.
posted by Congofeet at 6:06 PM

State Dept. Warns Against Thailand Travel
posted by Congofeet at 5:29 PM

Let it be known from hence forth that I hate Daylight Savings time...

I would also like to say that everyone should mourn the death of the pope, religious or not. If you are not religious you still must consider his humanitarian efforts. The death of the pope transcends religion. Although I am an agnostic I still feel that everyone should acknowledge the death of this great man. I mean common, a year ago he told the world Happy Easter in over 60 languages...I can't even think of 20 languages. If that does not show his devotion to all of humanity I don't know what does.
posted by Congofeet at 6:37 PM

Hopefully this works. It is a bunch of pictures of my fish and the new tank. If it does not work tell me and I'll try and figure out another way to do things. Leights.
posted by Congofeet at 8:34 PM

I meant to update this thing yesterday, but alas I forgot. This past week I bust my ass working. I spent about 30 hours in three days sampling on the marsh. This does not include my 15 hours working for dr wainwright. So I spent the first part of this week resting up so I can be ready for school, but alas school has started and I do not feel like going to school. I wish that we could start school on a monday like normal schools do, but we start on a thursday, which is crap...if they gave us just two more weekdays off we could get 4 more days off total, instead they give us exactly 7 days off, only 1 weekend is included instead of the potential two. So anyway, on monday I went to san francisco with Naoki. He bought some discus and I got some feeders for george and lights for the new tank. It was in china town and everything was pretty dam cheap. The feeders were 40 for $5 bucks instead of 30 feeders for $8 which is what I normally pay. Unfortunately I had just bought 30 feeders from Ace the day before, so I had to put 70 goldfish in one 10 gallon tank. I am very happy with the survival rate though, I have only had a couple die on me in the past week (knock on wood).

Oh, moving george was quite the ordeal, and he was sulking for a while, but I think he is back to normal. He was not eating the feeders like he would normally, but last night he hunted them pretty well. Greg (my green terror), Bruce and Willy (my bala sharks) did not really mind the tank switch, but then again they got to chill in a 5 gallon bucket during the swap while george had to lay in a trashcan that was too small for him. Charlie is out and about again, he used to just stay in his little area in the 55 gallon tank, but now he comes out. I am not too sure if he is eating algae again, but it is nice to see him out.

My Oscars that I put in the 20 gallon tank (Yin and Yang) have grown quite a bit since I first bought them. They killed two fish and were picking on another so I had to pretty much take everyone out of the tank that they are in. At least they get along with the other fish in the tank (Paul) who I plan to put into the 135 also. If you are wondering Oscars get to be at leat 12 inches long. They are pretty huge fish, that of course eat other fish...I would not have it any other way. Paul (he is a Polypterus) grows to be about a foot also, but he is just long. I imagine he would eat fish if he could, but his eye sight is not that great.

So anyway, that is all for now. Not much going on with school yet. My grades were a bit disheartening from last quarter, but at least I am not in trouble again. I got an "A", a "B", and 2 "C's". I was hoping for way better. I got a C in econ even though that class was easy, I think I just stopped caring about that class. I dont really find econ that great at all, but I am going to give it one more chance this quarter. If I still cannot get to liking it I might now major in econ. I dont want to take classes that I don't want to go to. Okay that is all for now, I am hoping to get some pics up this weekend of the tank and everybody...so leights.
posted by Congofeet at 5:22 PM