One week down

My productivity this weekend has been pretty bad. Irregardless, I'm going to eat dinner here soon (beef stew; it's been simmering all day) and be a bit more unproductive for at least another hour; I've got some Deep Roads* to explore further.

I figure I'm getting the unproductivity out of my system while I can :)

*Dragon Age: Origins is currently my anti-study aid

And they're off

Thankfully, yesterday did not make me want to bang my head against the wall (or curl up in a ball and cry/die). Monday must have been a glitch.

So I am doing my best to get ahead or at least stay on top of things. I am also trying to eat properly and get a decent amount of sleep (both problems that plagued me last year). We'll see how this goes.

First day of school! First day of school!

The first day of second year totally doesn't deserve as much excitement as there is in the title, but it is still fitting because (1) it is the first day of school and (2) I like Finding Nemo.

In any case I am absolutely exhausted. We have also hit the ground running in every single one of our classes. Like, "hi, how are ya, now let's start lecture right now"... which is not necessarily a bad thing, but I definitely could have used a few days of low-key stuff to get myself back into the school mindset.

This semester is going to suck the life out of me.

Flood update

There are now 8 confirmed water main breaks and most of the roads are now open. There is still a lot of standing water hanging around, though, and who knows how long that will take to percolate/drain away.

And we've got more rain in the forecast.

You might want a boat for this

I was awoken at 5am this morning by an automated phone call from the city of Ames: Water levels in Squaw Creek and the Skunk River were expected to rise to record-high levels.

Apparently, they were not content with simply meeting the record set in 1993. So now various parts of Ames, like Jack Trice Stadium and most businesses on the south end of S. Duff (though I must say it's Walmart's fault for building on a flood plain), are under water. Several major roadways, including part of Highway 30 and I-35, which are kind of essential to enter or leave Ames (at least from the south), are closed. And hundreds of people (or more) have been evacuated from their flooded homes. The surrounding area was also affected to varying degrees. It's bad enough that Iowa State is closed tomorrow.

Saving money is nice

The first Friday and Saturday in August are Iowa's tax free days - i.e. where clothing and shoes under $100 are exempt from the normal 7% sales tax. Stores also tend to have a ton of "special" sales, which makes this an excellent time to update your wardrobe.

One of the downsides to living in Ames, though, is the lack of good department stores and a decently-sized mall. Many people tend to skip down to Des Moines, which has several ginormous malls, and is the closest alternative shopping source. I elected to drive up to Cedar Falls/Waterloo yesterday to visit and shop with my sisters.

Admittedly, this has bugged me for a while

I remember when CNN had a "Science" category. Since its dissolution a few years ago, the quality of CNN's news page has (in my opinion) gone down considerably.

Take its definition of "breaking news", for instance - since when did "that girl from The Parent Trap gets out of jail early" and "daughter of I'm-totally-qualified-to-be-President and fiance split... again" qualify? But perhaps I'm in the minority who thinks that such articles belong in People and the like rather than blazoned on CNN's front page. Even their tech and health sections, it seems, have been dumbed-down and filled with more opinions than facts.