The sounds of my world

The bass rumble of the locomotive's diesel engines.
The clamor of the bells from the train and the crossings.
The squeak of unoiled bicycle wheels, the whirr of oiled ones.
The warning buzz of idler wheels like rattlesnakes in dry grass.
The clatter of keyboards.
The tick of chalk.
The hum and click of printers.
The rustle of paper in silent rooms.
The almost inaudible voice of folding desk hinges as people shift.
The patter of many feet on stone steps.
The rush of automobile wheels on pavement.
The absurd normality of music, people talking, dishes clinking in the kitchen of a restaurant, like a breath of the real world.
The insipid electronic ding of the door chime on the train.
The equally electronic board reader at the station.
The distant breath of train horns.

There is no music here but that which we make ourselves.

The good, the bad, and the... well.

The bad news: I'm running low on spoons today. Hard to concentrate, and stairs are daunting.

The good news: I got a 285/300 on the take-home midterm. My rough arithmetic places that between 94 and 95 percent. Average: 80%. Maybe I don't have to worry too much about Plant Growth and Devel.

In the "indifferent" category: 73.5% on my biochem exam. It's almost exactly what I was getting last quarter. I had thought that maybe I could do fairly well in biochem -- everyone says it's really hard, but everyone says that about ochem, and I pulled an A in that somehow. Nope. I can hope for 75% at best; it's telling that such a score still nets me a B.

I still prefer Abel's lecture style, but I obviously need to find a different way to approach this class. Maybe I can find some other way of studying... if nothing else, it might help me in graduate work.