"I was afraid I'd eat your brains"

1. I had a presentation for my environmental policy seminar on Wednesday, and it did not go well at all.  D:  I mean, OK, I got my point across well enough, and once I'd been speaking for a few minutes I was doing all right, and maybe I was just being hard on myself, etc. etc. etc.  I still didn't practice at all for it, or freaked out sufficiently over it -- I tend to find that the more I needlessly stress myself out over something, the better I do.  (Clearly such habits aren't all that healthy, no?  ^_^;)  I stumbled over my words a lot, I spoke for twice as long as I should have (although I could get a way with it), and overall I was just a mess.  This is going to hurt the grade for my final paper a little (since that was what the presentation was about), which means I really have to do a good job on the final draft.  But it's over, that final draft is the only responsibility I have left for that class, and I can relax about it!  Right?  O_o;

2. The latest album from The National, High Violet, leaked this week, and I'm just going to say that I'm ABSOLUTELY IN LOVE WITH IT.  :DDDDDDDDDDDDD  Seriously, it's made up 90% of my listening lately.  Like all their albums, it takes a while to warm up to it, but a lot of the individual songs are just amazing -- it's very possible that if I don't end up considering this album to be the best they've done, then it's at least one of their best.  I think my favorite song right now is "Conversation 16," followed by "Anyone's Ghost" and "Little Faith," and "Bloodbuzz Ohio" is the definite first single.  Though "Vanderlylle Crybaby Geeks" has to be one of the bleakest songs I've heard in a while, if only because it reminds me of my surviving grandmothers.  D8  But anyway, I love it, I can't wait for it to come out, and I'm sure I'll consider this my favorite album of the year come December.  Anyone else had a chance to listen to it yet?

3. Got a rather strange phone call last night -- someone I knew from high school called me after having not spoken to me for almost three years.  What was strange was that I was never really close to this person; I mean, we knew each other, but I don't remember us talking a lot, and I never considered him to be anything more than an acquaintance, like most of the kids I knew from high school.  So to hear him act all chummy on the phone was a bit weird, though I'm certainly not complaining.  Anyway, he called offering me a job; apparently a family member of a friend of his in our graduating class has run an Internet business in New York over the past 25 years, and wants to expand his business into Connecticut because he's been doing really well lately, and is looking for people to employ.  This acquaintance told me I was one of the first people he thought of regarding this job, and wants to arrange a meeting with me soon after I get back home.  On the one hand I'm like, "Yay!  Job!  :D"  But on the other hand, a part of me is wondering that this sounds a bit.......skeevy, perhaps?  He didn't go into a lot of detail, and I didn't push for more information as much as I should have.  Oh well, I guess I'll find out what this is all about soon enough.  ^_^;

4. Speaking of which -- I have two and a half weeks left of school this year, and I am completely burned out.  :P  As in, I don't want to do any more work right now.  Especially GIS -- I'm procrastinating on my final project big time (not like the project is all that big, but still), and the most recent lab exercise due next week is, for the first time this semester, a doozy.  D:  Eh, it'll get done.

5. Had a Voices of Indigenous People meeting today (yesterday?), where we discussed plans for next year and I somehow managed to become treasurer.  XD  (A bit of a step down from vice president, but like Ultra Magnus I'm not a take-charge leadership role kinda guy.  :B)  Our big focus is trying to get new members -- there's only four people in our club who won't be graduating this year (myself included), and that's not very sustainable.  This is going to be hard, since indigenous issues aren't really a big deal and lots of people tend to avoid "cultural organizations" like ours anyway, but hopefully something can work out.  ;-)

6. Hope everyone had a great Earth Day!  Our campus was doing an Earth Hour event, where you had to go electricity-free for an hour.  I decided to try it; I spent a good portion of it trying to take a nap (what can I say?  I was pretty tired!), and then I took a quick walk around campus.  I heard there was supposed to be live music and games someplace to give people something to do, but when I got there there was neither.  :(  Well, there were only about 50 people saying they'd do it on Facebook, and we all know how that is.

7. I finally got to see The Cove [IMDB] today!  An absolutely amazing documentary, one that managed to be both entertaining and very disturbing at the same time -- it definitely deserved the Oscar.  It's about a small fishing town in Japan that's the world's biggest supplier of dolphin meat and live dolphins used in entertainment shows like Sea World, and how they use sound to drive dolphins into a nearby cove (hence the title), where they are trapped and later slaughtered.  The film centers around the main trainer involved in the 1960s Flipper TV show, who after a crisis of conscience became an activist trying to release dolphins from captivity while having many run-ins with the law; it was about how he and a group of people he got together tried to document the slaughter without interference and resistance from local fishermen and authorities.  There was also an emphasis on how this hunt is a threat to human health, especially how seafood accounts for 70% of protein in our diet (which is why the depletion of seafood needs to be prevented), and how dolphin meat (and lots of other seafood, for that matter) contains near-toxic levels of mercury -- disturbing but useful information.  All in all, I highly recommend this movie if you haven't seen it already.

They'll also be showing Food Inc. [IMDB] on Saturday night, which I know I'll definitely be going to; there'll also be The Age of Stupid [IMDB] tomorrow (today?), but Sherlock Holmes is going to be playing as well, and I'll probably go see that instead.  XD

8. This story is awesome.  'Nuff said.

9. Memes!  Here are two of them:

A. Stolen from cloud_sama , crazedwolf , and aaaaaah :

IF YOU COMMENT ON THIS JOURNAL, I SHALL...

1. Respond with something random about you.
2. Tell you which color you remind me of.
3. Tell you my first memory of you.
4. Tell you what animal you remind me of.
5. Ask you something I've always wondered about you.
6. Tell you my favorite thing about you.
7. Tell you my least favorite thing about you.  (Maybe not.  XD)
8. Challenge you to post this on your journal.

B. Stolen from patokichi and konora :

Pick a fandom, any fandom I'm in. I will tell you:
• One True Pairing Ship:
• Canon Ship:
• "If this happens I'll stab my eyes out with a spork" Ship:
• "You are one sick puppy" Ship:
• "I dabble a little" Ship:
• "It's like a car crash" Ship:
• "Tickles my fancy but not sold just yet" Ship:
• "Makes no canon sense but why the heck not" Ship:
• "Everyone else loves it but I just don't feel it" Ship:

I'm not in a lot of fandoms, especially those with a high potential of ships, but all right, I'll do it anyway.  :3