Midterms and Maruchan

Midterms. College students everywhere tremble at the very mention of the word. And they're upon us. Mine have been spaced so that the first set bled into the second, granting approximately zero relief in between. I've already endured the first test out of round two, and I have two more this week (one of them is dance; remember how hard I tried to avoid that class? I'm wishing I'd tried harder.) and calculus next week. At first I thought the concept of having three midterms per class seemed cruel and unusual...and I still do. I realized, however, that the second set takes the place of the first term final in high school, and that made more sense. I understand it, but I don't have to like it.

Thus, life has become an arduous cycle of intensive studying, hasty meals, sleep deprivation, piles of homework and a looming sense of fear and dread. In addition, I also have cleaning checks tonight, which would be a breeze if I had roommates that helped keep the place clean. (Not that I don't like them, it's just that their standards of cleanliness are very different from mine.) That said, it's going to be another long night.

Somewhere in all the chaos, I haven't been grocery shopping, Which means I've fallen back on a time-tested college survival favorite, the universal sign that a wayward student has run out of food and/or money. I'll give you a hint: it's six for a dollar at the store, it cooks in three minutes and it tastes like sodium and sadness. Parsimony, thy name is Ramen.

Fortunately, the emptiness is only in my cupboards and not my bank account, so I should be back to having the best meals in the dorm soon enough. I happen to have found a whole slew of seasonal dessert recipes that I'm just dying to try, assuming midterms don't kill me off first.

So how does one persist when the situation seems so dire? The most common college answer would probably be caffeine, but I have none in my possession. Instead, I've found a few other coping mechanisms, which I think you might be interested in.

• Music: never underestimate the power of a good pump-up song. Even a sad or depressing song can act as a cathartic emotional channel, allowing you to get back up and keep going.
• Food: exercise extreme caution, because it's easy to get carried away. That said, there is no better pep talk than that of a Reese's peanut butter cup.
• Short breaks: never study for five hours straight. Trust me, I've done it enough times to know it's a bad plan. Take ten minutes every hour or so to breathe, get a drink or anything else you may need.
• Writing: writing allows you to express emotion and reduce stress. This could be in a journal, on a personal project, or even on a blog. Why do you think I'm typing right now?
• Sleep: your bed is your best friend. Protect your sleep hours as much as possible, even if that means only doing the assignments that are due at midnight tonight. You'll be happier and more productive in the morning.
• Embracing the Pain: I have no idea what sort of switch got flipped in my brain for me to enjoy the novelty of utter misery, but for some reason I can randomly put a goofy grin on my face and become a homework juggernaut. I can't maintain it very long though, and I don't think anyone can, so save it for when you need it the most.

There you have it, my official Toolbox For When Life Stinks. There are other methods that I haven't discussed, and I encourage you to search for them if these don't work out for you. Meanwhile, in the face of the midterms knocking on my door, I've found a Latin phrase that differs from my customary farewell, but I find it all too fitting. See you on the other side.

Nos Morituri te Salutamus!

Lexical Pound Cake

Have you ever heard of lexical density? I hadn't until just recently. In basic terms, lexical density is a measure of how difficult it is to read a particular piece of text. This is calculated by dividing the number of unique words in that text by the total number of words, which grants a percentage value. Lower values indicate text that is easy to read, while higher values show text that is more difficult, or "lexically dense."

For some reason I was strangely enamored with this concept, so I decided to do some more research. I found that in general, works of fiction tend to have lexical densities between 49% and 51%. If that sounds like a very narrow range, just know that I thought so, too. And it warranted an experiment.

Now, I have been known to spend a lot of time doing calculations on relatively stupid topics (If you don't believe me, read this post from my other blog. You will never see gears the same way again). I also happen to be sitting on the complete manuscript for a sci-fi novel I spent most of high school writing, so I figured why not have a little fun?

Knowing that fiction is supposed to be between 49-51%, I wanted to know how my own work of fiction stacks up. I found a text analysis website that calculates lexical density and went to work. I had gleaned from my research that larger samples of text give lower values because you repeat words more often (my book uses the word "the" about 6,800 times), but I had no idea how different the results would be. Putting on my mad scientist hat for a moment, I did an analysis of the entire book, which caused the website to crash a couple of times before it finally worked. Pro Tip: Do NOT try to copy/paste an entire novel. Some websites just can't handle it.

The result? 18%. At first I was utterly shocked. Compared to the roughly 50% goal marker, 18% made my novel look like a Dr. Seuss book, right? I was highly skeptical, and remembering what I'd heard about the sample text size, I wondered what sample sizes were used to obtain the 49-51% figure. Cue more math.

I did another analysis on each chapter of the book individually, and the results were astonishingly different!

Chapter	Lexical Density
Prologue	62%
1	44%
2	50%
3	45%
4	58%
5	50%
6	53%
7	57%
8	49%
9	48%
10	56%
11	53%
12	51%
13	52%
14	53%
15	69%
AVERAGE:	53%

Suddenly it went from a picture book to the Oxford English Dictionary! What happened? I figure a chapter is a good enough mixture of description and dialogue that it should be a good cross-section of the work, but my average is 53%, which is definitely above 49-51%. And just look at the last chapter. That's the kind of number that you'd expect from some stuffy academic dissertation, not YA fiction.

I have a few different writing styles, each one meant for a different purpose. I thought that perhaps lexical density would be proportional to the level of formality, so I ran a diagnostic on one of my blog posts, where I'm definitely not formal in any way. (It was the organization one from last month, if you want to know). The result? 74%. Not what I expected at all.

So what does any of this mean? Frankly, I'm not even sure. But, according to the math, I use a greater word variety than most writers, but according to a reading difficulty index based on a different formula (the website gave me both), my writing is on the easy-to-read side. I didn't think those two things could go together, but I figure that clear writing with above-average word variety has to be a good thing.

I don't know what I'll take away from this exploration of useless stats and figures, and I bet you'll get even less from it, but at least we both know more about lexical density than we did yesterday, right? Plus, I think this has all been rather fun, even if the math says my writing is more like pound cake than meringue. But I think I'll let you be the judge.

Hic Manebimus Optime!

Sticky Note Chaos

You may remember me mentioning in an earlier post that I wanted to dedicate an entry to the messages other apartments have spelled out of post-it notes in their windows. This is that post. Prepare yourself.

You may have seen this one before; I used it as a sneak peek earlier. It was the first, and it remains one of my favorites. After this had been up for a few days, they changed it to "Still hungry :(" and a girls' apartment in the building across the lawn replied with "No you're not," followed by "Come say hi." Sadly I didn't get pictures of all of them, so use your imagination.

This is the only one not spelled with sticky notes, but I felt it had merit. There used to be an additional sign that said "Come Date Me!" with a phone number, but by the time I came back for a picture it had been taken down. Too bad.

Remember the first picture? That one's in building 25, which faces building 26. Building 25 is a boys' building, 26 is girls. One day someone in 26 put up the word "Beans" and nothing else. Our dear friends in 25 #3204 (The 'please send food' people) replied with "Beans?" and another apartment in 26 also put up "Beans." Before long, no fewer than six apartments had the word "Beans" with either a period, question mark or exclamation mark, and everyone was confused. Finally the fourth floor of 25 put a lid on it with this:

After that, the windows were silent for a few days, until game day. For every football game, at least five apartments put up something along the lines of "Go cougs" or "Beat [insert opponent here]." Here's a sample.

Somewhere along the line our friends at 25 #3204 must've gotten some food, because they then tried to unload some excess peaches. The two responses from building 26 were nothing short of perfect.

Then there's 25 #4102. Poor 4102. All they want is some company, but it never seems to work out. One day I looked up and saw this (and the response) and couldn't help but laugh.

4102 has also tried "Somebody love me," "NCMO Tryouts" and "We <3 Girls" (sorry to say I don't have pictures of those). On the other side of the building, one apartment tried a different approach, which I think has been more successful.

4102 changed their approach, probably trying to be a little less creepy.

And this was the counter-offer from the first floor. Ah, capitalism.

So now you're up to speed on the window conversations. I hope you find them as entertaining as I do, and if I can gather enough to do another installment in the future, I will. In the meantime, I have some sticky notes to put up.

Hic Manebimus Optime!

Rainy Day

It's been raining virtually nonstop for the last two days, which can do interesting things to one's mood. Between the cold temperatures, limited outdoor options and complete disappearance of the sun, I haven't been motivated to do much. This is a problem, since I have midterms coming up this week and need to study, but cannot find the drive to do it. Thus, I resolved to make today a good rainy day, to get myself into a more productive mood.

First off, I decided to make cookies, because nothing improves your mood on a cold, dreary day quite like warm, succulent disks of chocolate chip deliciousness. Plus, having cookies allows me to set up a  Pavlovian self-reward system to get my homework done.

In addition I spent a large chunk of time curled up under a blanket and listening to music, because being warm and relaxed tends to make people more productive than being cold and stressed. I also set aside some time to do things I enjoy between study sessions, not only to create study breaks but also to feel like I accomplished something I wanted to do, rather than just things I have to do. I also messed around with my lightsabers for a little while, because it's scientific fact that lightsabers make you smarter. True story.

That's basically it for now. Unfortunately I didn't build a fort in the living room of my apartment this time, although the thought did cross my mind. We had one last week and we'll probably build another fairly soon, so I'll keep you posted. Until then, I have the looming threat of midterms to keep me company. But I also have cookies, so y'know...

Hic Manebimus Optime!

Illness and Injury

I am now sick. I am the fourth in my apartment to fall victim to a particularly nasty cold, meaning only two of us are as yet unscathed. I hoped I would escape this one, but today I woke up to a barrage of congestion, runny nose, headache, nausea, drowsiness, fever and a sharp pain right at the point where the nasal passages intersect with the throat. I hate that.

Fortunately, I've been able to bulldoze through my classes despite how I feel, but I don't have much motivation left over for anything else. In fact, I'm typing this from my bed, with a heavy blanket, glass of juice and rapidly dwindling box of tissues.

Oh, and since most of us are either sick or slowly recovering, we decided to give visitors fair warning.

Now you're thinking but wait, doesn't the title mention injury, too? And you're right. A few days ago I slipped on the stairs to my building and scraped most of the skin off the side of one of my toes (bad day to wear sandals). For such a minor-looking injury, it bled an astounding amount and is still disproportionately painful. Many Band-Aids have been consumed.

By now I think I've solidified that this is the worst I've felt in a very, very long time. Still, I think there's something to be learned from it. I'm stubborn like that.

This cold happened to remind me of one I had last year, which stretched on so long that I actually forgot what it felt like to be in good health. The thought made me realize that when I finally recovered, I didn't think too much of it. This is probably because the path out of an illness is slow and gradual, while the way in is rather quick. As a result, you don't realize you've recovered until you look back one day and think to yourself oh look, I'm not sick anymore. Cool beans.

I'm personally frustrated with that pattern, since I believe one should enjoy the high points just as much as one hates the low points. If I hate being sick, shouldn't I celebrate being healthy? That's my point for the day: appreciate health. Look at yourself and say "Gee, I'm so glad I'm not sick right now!" because someday, when you least expect it, you might wake up with some Death-Virus like I just did. And if you aren't currently graced with the benefits of health, just keep pushing along. The world doesn't change what it demands of us just because we aren't in peak condition, so instead we have to change our approach. Take it a day at a time, and someday it'll all work out. I'm rooting for you!

Hic Manebimus Optime!

How I Became a (Slightly) More Organized Person

There's one thing I'd like to say before we get started. I've always been a messy person. Everywhere I go seems to wind up looking like an earthquake struck, or at least that's been the case for a very long time. In the past week or so, however, it seems a miracle has occurred: I've suddenly become organized.

How did this happen? Frankly, I have no idea. I imagine a "responsible adult" switch got flipped somewhere, but that explanation does little to satisfy my loyal readers, so I'll tell you one other theory: I started making my bed.

I realize that probably sounds dumb, but there are plenty of articles that talk about how making your bed not only makes your room look better, but provides a sense of accomplishment, thus setting you up for a day's worth of successes. Plus, when it's time to go to bed at night, you arrive to a tidy, comfortable setting instead of the disaster you left in the morning. Multiple sources claim that building a bed-making habit works wonders, so I decided to give it a shot. And yes, I just became one of those I-didn't-believe-it-until-I-tried-it-and-you-should-too people. Yep, I'm cringing too. Try not to think about it too much.

After that, I seem to have followed a whole chain of organizational habit-building, including the following:

• Maintaining a clean desk. My workspace looks better than it ever has, and for once I have enough room to actually do work while sitting there.
• Using a planner. I've never been able to keep that up for more than three days before, but now I find myself pulling it out all the time.
• Using a calendar. It's a big version of the planner. I've never used one of these properly before, either.
• Cleaning for no reason. Yep, I turned into one of those people. I kind of hate it. But my room looks nice.

Now, I have no business making claims about my great strides without providing photographic proof, right? Right. First off, I'll show you two of my roommates' room. It looks a lot like they way mine did a few weeks ago.

 In contrast, here's mine now. Not bad, right?

Plus, who doesn't love this bedspread? (apart from vegans, I suppose--I don't think they make "keep calm and eat salad" fabrics.)

Oh, and this is my desk. Also looking pretty good lately.

So that's it. I'm going to try not to gloat about how my room is the cleanest in my apartment, or how I'm mastering techniques usually reserved for Pinterest people. Okay, I'm gonna gloat a little. Here we go.

There. I'm done now.

I'm not going to try to push these organizational behaviors on anyone, mostly because I tend to react violently when people tell me what to do with my space. Instead I'll leave you to ponder your options, and maybe submit a humble suggestion that you try making your bed. See if you like it.

Hic Manebimus Optime!

Trial And Error

Normally I would be waiting a few more days before my next post, but quite a bit has been happening recently, and I felt I should make up for my less-than-diligent summer installments, so here we go!

I have now completed a week of classes, and I must say I'm getting used to the college dynamic. By which I mean I've embraced the fact that everything could change at any time. College is a world of spontaneity, and I'm discovering more and more that the the best way to get through it is to stay loose. You have to be simultaneously relaxed and on your toes. I'll let you decide whether that's actually possible.

A thought occurred to me as I was thinking about a certain board game, in which a group of players must work together to succeed. Each round, a new crisis faces the colony, and players must join forces to combat their circumstances. I believe living with roommates is a remarkably similar dynamic. Sometimes the crisis is a communication breakdown which has caused there to be six gallons of milk in the fridge, and sometimes the crisis is that a toilet is clogged and nobody in the entire building owns a plunger.

I'm happy to say that we've survived both of those scenarios. It only got sketchy for a little while.

This week also saw the emergence of new communication methods between apartments. I have heard that putting signs in windows is a fairly common thing, but I've been pleasantly surprised with some of the things other students have spelled out of sticky notes on the glass. It's gotten to the point where entire conversations have developed, and I plan to make a whole post out of it, so in the meantime I'll give you a teaser trailer from an ill-prepared apartment two stories above my own.

And that's just the beginning. More of those later.

In other news, last night my roommates and I went to a friend's apartment to watch the football game against Arizona, which was very fun, if a little long and drawn out. I mentioned last time how the level of school spirit in college is flat-out intoxicating, and I'm finding more and more evidence to support this. First of all, BYU is known for having one of the strongest traveling fan bases in the country. This was proven true when we out-sold the Arizona fans at what was considered their home game. Granted, it's important to note that it isn't technically their stadium, but it's a lot closer to them than to us. Secondly, following our field goal victory in the last six seconds of the game, everybody we saw on the street cheered back and forth with us as we walked home. Drivers honked, passengers yelled and night joggers high-fived us in single file, making it really sink in that everybody was watching. We didn't make it back to our dorm until about 1:00 in the morning, but it was worth every minute.

Come 6:00, of course, I was rudely awakened by the ear-splitting noise of the fire alarm. Now, I've been through plenty of fire drills at various places, but this alarm was something else. It's RIDICULOUSLY LOUD. By the time I stumbled out of our dark apartment and onto the lawn beside the building, I was already checking to make sure my ears weren't bleeding.

That isn't the end, either. Once outside, we had to sit listening to the unholy noise for a solid thirty minutes, barefoot and freezing, while the hall advisors and fire department determined the problem. The verdict: some kindhearted soul pulled the fire alarm for absolutely no reason. I had hoped that college students would have grown past that sort of junior-high-level prank, but I suppose I was wrong. It isn't all bad, though; I may be falling asleep on my feet now, but I had half of my homework done before the sun came up, so it's all good.

That's all for now. Tomorrow I will be using my class-free Labor Day to recover from my sleep deprivation and most likely clean the apartment, which has rapidly deteriorated over the last four days. I have my work cut out for me.

Hic Manebimus Optime!