My Day, by John Behrens

My day starts here, in my room. Well, sometimes. Sometimes it starts on the couch downstairs, or out on the patio, or on my floor, or on the floor in the basement with headphones on. But today it started here, and it was sunny.

Then I got dressed, filled my pockets with the accoutrements of life, and looked like this.










On my way out I stopped to pet Daisy, who was sleeping on the family room couch like this. She was very very cute, and it would have been very very nice to have flopped down on the couch with her and slept instead of going to class.

But I went to class like a good slave of the system :-P

I walked out to my car parked in the driveway, unlocked the doors, and flopped my backpack on the passenger's seat. Ignition on, sub on, decide between satellite radio or CD, decide between windows or AC, emergency brake off, and roll out the driveway.


On the way I heard this song, and thought of Mike Quinlisk. It was actually a good song.







The right turn onto Dawson was mysteriously blocked, as you see here. After waiting for a few minutes and seeing no movement of the substantial bloc of cars in front of me, I turned around and went searching for another way. Why was I the only one to do that? It's an interesting question.


Anyway, I went around, and after turning right into some alley I was confronted and halted in my path by this dramatic view. The picture does it more justice than I expected. Except when I was there the cathedral looked a WHOLE lot bigger.

So, I got around the traffic and went merrily on my way, only slightly later for class than I had already been. I couldn't park here at my normal place becaue they were all taken.




So I parked here, which was up ahead and to the left in the previous picture. I was happy because these spots are likewise half an hour for a quarter.





Shut off the sub so people don't hear it and jack it when I leave, shut off the now harsh and empty- sounding stereo, cell phone in pocket, keys in hand, get quarters out of my little round mint tin holder, put the cooler bag into my backpack, get out, hoist backpack up onto my shoulder, close the door, lament the heat that will build up as the car bakes in the sun, pop the quarters in, and start walking down this familiar and oft-traveled street towards Benedum.

I hit the button and stared at the oh-so-familiar elevators after deciding not to get all sweaty and breathless by walking up the 12 flights of 22 steps to get to the Chem E classroom.




Walk in, turn around, and hit "12" on this oh-so-familiar panel of buttons. Stare at the buttons for the 100th time as you rise up the floors.





Tuesday is normally just a brief recitation where the TA answers questions about the homework and goes over stuff from the previous one. But today Dr. Johnson decided to lecture instead. So we learned all about enzyme inhibition.

This is my champion homework partner Jenna. She spazzes out about stuff fairly frequently, gets high on coffee, gets humorously belligerent sometimes, and doesn't always know the answer, but she cares about learning and she gets stuff done in time, and that's all I can ask from a homework groupie.

Dr. Johnson is a very good teacher. So much so that many of the students mildly (or not so mildly) dislike him. He expects us to learn, and he doesn't blindly and blankly tolerate ignorance or shoddy work. He frequently expresses concern for our actual education, betterment and preparation for the real world, which as far as I can tell is genuine. It's just...his little laugh gets pretty annoying sometimes :-P

Here's the view from the elevators looking towards the classroom (on the left where it's dark) as Jenna talked with Craig about the research group meeting that was tearing her away from working on homework as I *thought* we were doing. *tsk*


This was the pleasant view to my right as I walked out of the building after taking the elevator down and finding nothing pictureworthy during the ride. The summer sun was quite nice at 11am.

When I got back home Jonathan was still around upstairs, Mom was still out after taking Ken to the airport, and Daisy was...
















Pretty much right where she was when I left :-)

I played electric guitar for a long time very loudly, and then went upstairs to help Jonathan set stuff up in my room and straighten a few things up. Then I cooked up a crumbled asiago cheese and diced red pepper omelette for lunch, which was really good--better than I expected. After lunch I did computer stuff for several hours and then went upstairs into Ken's room and did some studying for analytical chemistry on the bed up there. It was mildly productive; another slogging step towards fully grasping what I will be tested on Thursday evening.

Then I put my drumset together and played for a couple minutes before dinner. Which was good. Mom made it. She makes most meals around here. They are very healthy. It's very kind of her to make them for us!




I ended first, packed up my backpack again, and headed out again for Pitt. Two times in a day. Inefficient, perhaps, but boy is it nice to have an afternoon at home with which to live my life. I parked a few spots away from where I had been parked that morning and walked up to Chevron for 3 hours of heavily-accented analytical chemistry lecture. The thrilling powerpoint notes handout is showed at the left.

Yury Skorik is a nice prof, but he asks tons of questions during class and often they are unclear or pretty dumb - so much so that you don't answer 'cause you think it must be something more, and it's not, and it takes time and you feel dumb. But overall it's not bad.


These are 4 people from my Chem E class who are in this class. We sit together and joke together sometimes, but I'm pretty starkly outside of their circle. But I've made them laugh a few times and inspired them to jump over the little circular tables out in the lobby after I did. Drew saw me taking the picture and started to turn her head away, consequently marring her visage, whilst Eric looks on with his characteristic cool aloofness and mild passive contempt.

Dr. Skorik saw me taking this picture as he stood next to me, which was a little awkward.






This is how I looked at the end of the day, in the bathroom after class let out at 9. I need to wash my hair, and those AE pants were a size too large (I thought I was grabbing the smaller of the two pairs in the store), and I need a haircut. Arg, how I want one. But Dad's gone, and I don't mind toughing it out with a big mass of stuff up above me. At least I trimmed my beard this morning, which was getting even scragglier and dumber than normal :-) I like that youth camp shirt. One of the best T-shirts I own.

After class I laid down in the grass outside the Soldiers & Sailors Monument absorbing the lit-up darkness of night in the Pitt campus until a spray of water told me that the automatic sprinkler system had made its way to my area. Then it was on to Fuel & Fuddle to start out on the 100 beer list and try the fabled buffalo wing pizza. The food and drink were great and I recommended the USS Yorktown in Charleston, SC as a good stop for Jenna on her way back from vacation there in a couple weeks. She works at F&F, which is why I stopped by last week. It's a sweet place. Their house brew brown ale was delish. The pear cider was fake-flavored, though. BOOOO. It had nutrition facts and an ingredient list on it, which is weird.

The green blur in this pic is Jenna as she fled the scene.

And that's pretty much the end of my day. I drove back home at midnight and have been sitting here on the small couch in the family room with my laptop, hopping over to Daniel's a few times to do AIM, since arriving. I listened to movie music on the way home (Back to the Future), so I was in the mood for Star Wars. When I got tired of that I played a couple Pure Boss songs and now I'm listening to Pink Floyd, which is fitting for the mood. I'd put a picture in of my current state, but my cell phone has decided not to hook up to my laptop for utterly no apparent reason, so I'm left to work with text.

My work is done. I'm very tired, Pink Floyd is making me comfortably numb, and i have reached the end of the day, both in journal and in reality. Good night! This is my life. yay for life.

--Clear Ambassador