It's raining! I love the rain. It always brings up sweet scents of moist earth, and fond memories of Seattle and London. There's something very pleasant about walking around campus, grey skies overhead, and beads of water lightly falling over me, absorbing into my hair and clothes. It's been funny getting used to getting my glasses all wet, though. I've never worn glasses full time until recently, and it's funny the things I've never even considered. For instance, when it was first raining the other day, I thought, I should put my glasses away, or else they'll get all wet. But then I looked around and had an, "Oh, right... duh!" moment, when I saw plenty of other people wearing glasses and not removing them. Probably because of the whole not being able to see without them thing. That kind of gets in the way of choosing to remove your eyewear all willy-nilly, whenever you please!

And then tonight I took off my glasses upon entering the library, in order to dry them off. I tried to keep walking as I did so, but my eyes have clearly gotten used to the glasses. Everything far away adopted a slight blur around the edges, and I felt dizzy as I tried to walk. I stepped off to the side, closed my eyes while I dried my lenses, and only re-opened my eyes once they were safely equipped again! (I'm calling an optometrist tomorrow, by the way.)

In other news, today was the big day - first Statistics midterm!!! And you know what? I did okay. I actually kind of understand that stuff, man. On the first day of class, my professor told us he wouldn't let us use formula sheets during the tests. We had to memorize them. And to be honest, I thought that was total bullshit. But, he said the formulas ARE the concepts, and giving those to us would be like giving us the answers. I kind of agree with him, but more to the point, knowing I had to memorize the formulas made me want to truly understand them and commit the concepts to memory. And damn, it worked out pretty well! I think in the summer version of Stats, knowing I'd have the formula sheets gave me a false sense of security. But this time, I wrote out my own formula sheet from memory right at the start of the test so I'd have something to refer to. Very helpful! (Thanks, TA, for suggesting that, even though I know [I hope!] you're not reading!)

I read the book, I did the homework problems, I went to office hours AND the review sessions AND the optional discussion sessions. I studied with friends and by myself. And I think it paid off. I hope so. I guess I'll know when I find out my grade! The good news is, we're graded on a curve, and there were plenty of people saying, "What was THAT?" after the test. I'm thankful I wasn't one of them. I WAS during the summer. Hooboy, was I ever! I guess taking Statistics during the summer really did help prepare me for the second time around. It wasn't wasted time after all! Thank god for that.

Anyway, two cool things happened yesterday:

1) In the review session, my TA asked while pointing to an equation on the board, "So if this is a distribution of scores, what is this?" The room remained still and silent. I raised my hand, he called on me, and I said, "A distribution of sample means." And he said, "YES, the distribution of sample means.." and in my head, I said, "HOLY CRAP I GOT ONE RIGHT!!!" Considering that only a week earlier, I'd burst into tears because everything the TA said confused me so much, I was just beyond thrilled that I finally understood the words coming out of his mouth.

2) As my friend, (fine, I'll give her a pseudonym already) Fiona, and I were walking to the student union from the review session, we saw a small crowd of excited people around some very bright lights. Naturally, we worked our way into the crowd, trying to get closer, and eventually asked people, "So what's going on over here?" As it turns out, they were surrounding Tom Cruise! Tom Cruise was at my school!! It was weird knowing he was behind this wall of people, that he was right there, but I couldn't see him. Also, people were holding out head shots of Tom Cruise and saying, "Tom. Tom! Tom. TOM!" over and over. The man is not deaf, people. He's busy. And, seriously, what the fuck? Are you not aware that that's the most annoying thing in the world? Saying someone's name over and over when they just aren't ready to get to you yet? I mean, really. That in and of itself is reason enough for me to throw away all notions of ever wanting to be famous. Not that I was going to be in the first place, but you know what I mean.

Anyway, Fiona and I just thought it would be cool to see Tom, not necessarily listen to the interview he was about to be given. I mean, it was ten dollars. And there was a line for tickets. And we were HUNGRY. So we just loitered and stretched on our tippy-toes (we're both short) until Fiona and I both got a glimpse of him through the crowd. We both saw his face. That's Tom Cruise, all right! Then we allowed ourselves a moment of, "Holy shit, we just saw Tom Cruise!" before getting over it, and seeking out some dinner. It was pretty fun!

Other weirdness:

1) I had dreams about statistics formulas and calculations all night long, mixed in with a dream that I lost one of my two front teeth, my right one. Yikes! I hate teeth-losing dreams!

2) I decided not to drive the more urban route to school today, and instead drove along the oceanside with the windows down, smelling the salt air, sneaking glimpses of the waves (while keeping my eyes on the road, of course) and loving the breeze blowing through my car. I was all smiles and I felt fantastic by the time I got to school.

3) There was a meditation/healing group going on outside the student lounge earlier today, so I sat down, expecting cool things. Instead, some dude explained the chakra system to me, telling me stuff I knew, and other stuff that didn't sound right, and then said, "Okay, meditate on your own a few minutes." So I did, and then he was like, "Okay, thanks, come to one of our group meetings at these regular locations -- goodbye!" I looked around and other meditators had people standing behind them, moving their hands around the meditators' bodies, clearly doing healing work. What the-? Where was my healing work? My guy just sat next to me while I meditated, not behind me doing anything special. Damn. I got gipped! Or actually, not, I guess, since I didn't pay for anything. Oh, well. Meditating before a test is never a bad thing, regardless, so I guess that part was cool.

Last but not least, taking tonight off from schoolwork was really great. I studied a lot last week, as well as through the weekend and yesterday, and it was nice to just come home and relax tonight, not worrying about any studying or any other midterms. I can worry about that starting tomorrow. And likely will! For now, it's time for sleep. Goodnight!