Things that don't happen every day

Um... there's an issue going on right now.

No, make that two. Well one is already done with... here I'll use my friendly lists:

1. I was cooking today and wanted to add ginger to my cooking. My ginger shrunk. 
2. Our laundry machine spewed out a candy cane

Story 1: Case of the shrinking ginger

This story isn't so strange. Basically I cut my ginger a while ago and put it in a cabinet. My parents do this very often and the ginger usually only shrinks a bit at the cut area. Not so for me. My ginger turned into a misformed twig:

I found this quite amusing. Actually I showed my roommate and we started laughing; right now I'm not sure what the humour was though. This ginger actually looks very sad.

Story 2: Case of the Magical Candy Cane Creation Factory that is our Laundry Machine

So starting the beginning this week, my roommate was doing her laundry. She then reported to me that during the last 5min of the cycle (the spin cycle), the machine started making really loud and scary noises. On instinct, she removed her clothes and noticed a very strange burnt plastic/chemical smell. 

Today she tried again, with hopes that it was a one time phenomenon. Again, the last 5min consisted of strange and otherworldly noises. And again, the pungent odour was noticed.

So roughly 2 hours ago I decided that I needed to wash my clothes. And so I thought, hey I'll just set the machine to not do the spin cycle, that way it'll never reach the point of the strange noises. Naive thinking.

Midway through the wash cycle some heavy bangs were heard from the machine. Roommate has confirmed that it was not the same noise she heard but we thought we ought to check it out just in case. So we looked and noticed there was a strange piece of plastic among my clothes. We opened the doors and beheld:

Yes. It's a candy cane. Crushed and such but still a candy cane. The mystery is where this candy cane came from since neither my roommate nor I have had such a candy cane before. In fact, the box of 100 candy canes I bought for Christmas looks absolutely nothing like this (mine have a green stripe as well and the packaging has words). 

So we figure, ok, now we know why the laundry was making weird sounds. Let the washing cycle continue. BAD IDEA

Somehow, the laundry froze during the middle of the rinsing stage. It also didn't drain. And since there's water inside it the door is locked. My clothes are in there. 

Roommate just called the company who made the washer (LG...), they said we need to reset the machine. I'm studying for an upcoming test and so lovely roomie has offered to take care of it. I've already planned out backup clothes anyways so I'm not too worried. I would like to have the machine door opened at some point though... 

Random things happen it seems. It's been such an entertaining night I've laughed myself silly. Back to work now.

Children

I just had a conversation with my brother and his friend. It went something like this:

Brother: Sis it's not listening to me
Me: -rushes over- What's not listening to you?
Brother: My head isn't listenin-
Friend: -giggling- NO NO! OUR SOCKS!
Brother: -also giggling- Ya, our socks aren't listening to us.
Friend: Ya my sock won't listen
Me: Ok... so what do you want me to do about this?
-Mild silence-
Brother: I want to punch my sock
Friend: -punching his right foot- Ya I want to punch my sock too
Me: Ok then you guys go punch your socks.
-They punch their feet as I leave laughing wildly-

Sometimes I wonder what goes on in their heads. I don't recall being extremely strange when I was their age (Five-years-old), and I do remember being that age. The strangest thing I ever did was play pretend with my parents (I was the teacher and they were my students)... which isn't really that strange.

My dear brother also thought it would be pretty funny to tell me that his bum was on fire the other day. He waltzed into my room and shouted -between laughing hysterically- about how there was fire on his bum. Apparently it was the greatest joke of the century, but sadly I did not understand the humour.

There seems to be something incredibly funny about using "bad words" and insults as well. In their case "stupid poopy head" is a terribly brilliant insult. I understand this, after all if anyone dares call me a stupid poopy head, I wouldn't be very happy (despite my initial laughter of course).

For some reason I don't recall being so giddy about these "bad words" and odd jokes... is it a gender/sex thing?

Exam Kitten

So I have to say, I love Notewagon. They are wonderful. Mostly because they send me very interesting updates to their site. Not the usual boring ones, but actually pretty entertaining ones. See early this morning, I checked my inbox, I had a new email from "Hi (hi@notewagon.com)" with the subject line "'Friday, Friday, Studying on Friday". The amusement start immediately, and continued upon opening the email, revealing this:



The adorableness!

And yes, I now realize that it's time to start the cram session. This kitty has served its purpose in reminding me of my awaiting textbooks. So plans set down:

1. Create giant biology study guide/sheet
2. Create a giant math study sheet with all important equations and such
3. Use unit analysis on everything we've learned in Physics
4. Generally review some chemistry; not sure if I want to make a study sheet for this too
5. Find some time in the midst of all this to write my history essay

Also discovered that my one possible good physics marks hope went down the drain. This means I'll have to score at least a 90 on the exam to maintain my average. ... so be it. I'm considering deactivating my facebook to make sure the only things to distract me will be blogging and msn. Will consider this idea more once the cram session fully kicks in.

The Keener

There used to be the geek, then the nerd, then the genuis, then the geek-nerd, then the geek-genuis then the nerd-genuis, then the nerd-geek-genius (not specifically in that order). Now though, there is perhaps one label to surpass all others: The Keener.

Before I continue, there is indeed (according to the interwebs) a difference between a nerd and a geek. Please see: http://www.wikihow.com/Tell-the-Difference-Between-Nerds-and-Geeks for more details. 

Basic summary though:

Geek (GPA 3.0): 

• Memorizes EVERYTHING no almost no apparent reason
• Is a massive human encyclopedia
• Is likely good with technology
• Likely uses 'big' words

Nerd (GPA 3.7):

• Really likes learning
• Enjoys problem solving
• Also good with technology
• May or may not be slightly anti-social
• Grades do not usually fall below a 90%

Genius (GPA 3.9-4.0):

• Is capable of doing everything a nerd and geek can do
• If the Genius is neither a Nerd nor a Geek, (s)he probably does not enjoy the intellectual pursuit 

Keener (GPA 4.0):

• Tries extremely hard in school
• Does assigned work before the halfway point between getting the assignment and the due date
• Starts studying for a test at the beginning of the course
• Has probably emailed a professor 
• Has probably asked a professor a question face to face
• Will horde all notes to save for review in the future
• Takes good notes
• Memorizes all formulas; even if a formula sheet is given on tests
• Usually tends to have a limited social life (if not no social life at all)
• Generally gets amazing marks 
• A mark below a 90% may cause the Keener to undergo metamorphosis and become an Emo
• You probably don't see a Keener much since they tend to do nothing but study, eat, sleep, and use the washroom. And breath. 

As you can see, Keeners are intense. 

Now you can mix up these labels as much as you want to assign a proper label to someone. Just put the label that matches said person the most at the beginning and add dashes in between labels. For example a nerd-keener-genius-geek probably really likes school, works hard at it, really likes learning and is very good at academics. I also find that geek-geniuses tend to be good peer tutors. 

Now most Nerds are also often Keeners since both are fond of school and learning. However Keeners do not have to like learning, and so a keener-genius (a frighteningly effective being) does not really like learning. They're probably just in school out of boredom or because their parents told them to so. 

You may also now be thinking that genius-nerds may be rare since Nerds enjoy learning while Geniuses don't really care too much. However if you will note that in the definition of a Genius, said being does not care for learning unless (s)he also has a Nerd/Geek trait.

Now if there is a genius-geek-nerd somewhere who can help me come up with a mathematical equation to find the average percentage mark received by any combination of these traits, that'd be really helpful. I'm afraid I'm not Geek or Genius enough to do so and I'm far too Keener to bother using my time to continue this already rather long blog blob.