Holy Lack of Motivation, Batman!

well, now that i've spent most of yesterday afternoon and all day today studying the structures and toxic effects of pesticides, polyaromatic hydrocarbons, heavy metals, and other toxic substances, i became a little curious and decided to see exactly how low of a grade i can aim for on my ecotoxicology final to come out of the class with an A. well, in doing this, i guess-timated a couple of grades and have come up with a figure that probably underestimates my current grade in the course. in all of this frantic calculation, i have discovered that if i do not take the final exam at all, as in make a 0% on the final, i will have a B in the class. yeah, as of right now including a 0 for my final exam grade i have a nice round 80 for the course. how's that for motivation to study? and, despite having a B with a 0 on the final, i would still have to make a low C on it to keep my glorious 4.0 gpa that has followed me throughout my college career. it would be such a shame to give it up now... but man am i ever not motivated to put in 4 or 5 more quality study hours with my notebook tonight so i can review all of the old material. i think i have a pretty good handle on the new stuff. go on - ask me what the structure of a pyrethroid looks like (it's basically a triangle of carbon with a bunch of functional groups hanging off, in case you were wondering). you can even ask me how bipyridylium herbicides work (they damage photosynthetic membranes via the generation of reactive oxygen species like superoxide). ha! take that, ecotox!

now, all that super basic stuff from way back in the beginning? yeah, i don't quite remember all of that. maybe enough to wing it, though. at least enough to make a C. probably even enough to pull out a B on the exam. but do i really want to put in the extra effort to know everything through and through just so i can say i made an A on the final exam when a C on the exam would get me the same A for course? probably not. well, i'm off to study for another hour or so before the flyers' game starts - they're playing vancouver tonight, and i definitely don't feel so motivated to study a little more that i'm going to miss it.

oh, before i leave you for the night, i must make a short comment on the ice pilots game last night. wow! that pretty much says it all. they had, like, no offense (until collins finally decided to shoot instead of making a pass with about 3 minutes left in regulation time), but the D played surprisingly well (notice that aldoff and heid were both out for the game), and ford kicked ass. and our #1 goalie for now (until freddy makes his return) even tried to kick a little literal ass. corey was involved in a little scrap with two gladiators, all by his lonesome, and ford decided that just wasn't right and decided to step in himself since no one else was around. he ended up falling on his ass, but the fact that he went over and jumped on a guy entertained us all. oh, and i must congratulate jacquo on that spiffy new A on his jersey. i was excited about it. anyway, back to the game and todd ford... the pilots held gwinnett (a very good team, for those who don't know how significant pensacola's not getting killed was - the last time gwinnett played in pensacola, they shut us out 6-0) to only one goal, and they didn't get scored on in the 3rd period for the first time all year (!). vanessa and i asked for a shootout, and that's what we got. it was a good one, too. ford stopped all five shots, and the new guy pete gardiner, who has a flair for the dramatic, was pensacola's 5th shooter in the shootout, and the only player to score in it. yeah, i went in saying, "so, how bad are we gonna lose tonight?" and walked out grinning and a little shocked that my team managed a win.